As an important component of continuous program development and ensuring they achieve high outcomes for youth, program staff maintain a high level of connectivity with past clients, whether they completed the program or not. As a result, staff are able to monitor the short and long term outcomes for youth, year after year. The following is a summary analysis of youth outcomes:

Outcome	Count	%
Complete	48	61%
Incomplete	30	38%
Incomplete due to Medical Reasons	1	1%
Totals	79	100%

Since its inception, Train for Trades has worked with 79 youth (with an additional 19 youth currently participating in the program. The above table represents youth who are no longer in the program. Of the 79 youth, 48 completed the program successfully, while the remaining 31 are categorized as ‘incomplete’, which includes youth who voluntarily left the program prematurely, left the program for medical reasons, or were deemed needing more support than the program could provide at the time.

Current Status	Count	%
Employed	32	41%
Post-Secondary	4	5%
Program Enrolment[3]	3	4%
Unemployed	37	47%
Deceased	1	1%
Unknown	2	3%
Totals	79	100%

At first glance, the table above shows a youth ‘success’ rate of just below 50%, if success is defined by either securing employment or pursuing post-secondary education of some sort. However, digging deeper into the numbers demonstrates a very clear distinction between participants who have completed and those who have not completed the program, as outlined in the tables below.

Status of Participants Who Are No Longer with Train for Trades	Completed	%	Incomplete	%
Employed	26	55%	6	19%
Post-Secondary	4	9%	0	0%
Program Enrolment	1	2%	2	6%
Unemployed	13	28%	23	72%
Deceased	1	2%	0	0%
Unknown	2	4%	0	0%
Incomplete Due to Medical Reasons	0	0%	1	3%
Totals	47	100%	32	100%

The impact that participating in the Train for Trades Program has on the outcomes of young people is clear when looking at post-exit outcomes detailed in the tables above. When comparing youth who have completed the program to youth who have not, the pathways are very different. Of the youth who have completed, 66% have gone on to either pursue post-secondary education, secure employment, or transitioned into the next appropriate program, which is the true measure of outcome success for the Train for Trades team. Conversely, of the youth who have not completed the program, only 19% have secured employment; 72% are unemployed, with none of these youth pursuing educational opportunities.

Homeless Hub Thoughts:

The program itself is very successful and is clearly able to measure success through youth achievement. However, there is no formal assessment process in place, which is a weakness and presents risk to the ongoing success of the program. Funders, in particular, like numbers. They like to be able to concretely measure success and achievement to establish that their money is being used efficiently and effectively.

All data collected at T4T is done by staff. Every six months they follow-up with youth who have left the program by phone call, text or by reaching out to family/friends. When connection is made with a youth, staff get current contact information and obtain a progress update on the youth’s activities. Staff also get together and discuss current and past youth. The information is entered into an Excel spreadsheet so that it is current.

To us, this is merely a baseline of what needs to be done and as a result, we would classify Train for Trades as a promising practice. To obtain best practice status, agencies must be subject to evaluation, especially from external evaluators. The successes (and failures) must be examined. Successful replication of a program is also key to moving from an emerging or promising practice into a best practice.

An intervention is considered to be a promising practice when there is sufficient evidence to claim that the practice is proven effective at achieving a specific aim or outcome, consistent with the goals and objectives of the activity or program. Ideally, promising practices demonstrate their effectiveness through the most rigorous scientific research, however there is not enough generalizable evidence to label them ‘best practices’. They do however hold promise for other organizations and entities that wish to adapt the approaches based on the soundness of the evidence. For a more complete discussion of the differences between best, promising and emerging practices see: What Works and For Whom? A Framework for Promising Practices published by the Homeless Hub.

We also believe that data management software (as discussed in the Supports section) is important to help track data. Beyond the casual updates every six months we would also see value in extensive exit interviews with youth to determine what worked and did not work for them, as well as qualitative interviews, surveys and focus groups with staff and youth to help evaluate the program.

Evaluation is often an afterthought to program delivery. While funders want numbers and proof of success, they are also reluctant to fund extensive evaluation, which makes it hard for agencies to carry out the level of evaluation necessary. We encourage agencies to budget for evaluation funding and to work with academic partners in the community to obtain evaluations of their programs.