Evaluation system for community sport programmes

Introduction

Communities all over world report increases in crime, violence, drugs and homelessness, especially among the young members of the population. Many pedagogic, psychosocial, and medical institutes as well as education and training centres are trying to help children and adolescents deal with problematic situations (Chisholm, Büchner, Krüger, du Bois-Reymond, 1995). Sport is often recognised as a tool for crime prevention, social cohesion and intercultural dialogue and as a powerful and cost-effective way of supporting development and peace objectives in the communities. Community sport programmes are sometimes the one and only medium to reach "hard to reach" young people, to engage them in "useful" activities, to give them a chance to explore their physical and psychical borders (Griesbeck, Borkovic & Axster, 2003). The specific role of sport and the efficacy of such programmes is still not completely defined nor evaluated.

Methods

As there is still insufficient research on the effectiveness and consequences of prevention measures and intervention in families, pre-school institutions, schools, youth service, youth welfare, and in the criminal justice system, community sport programmes are not an exception. The modell to be presented is an evaluation and monitoring system for community sport programmes and is based on the socialisation theory of Hurrelmann and Engel (1994), the evaluation considerations of Rossi and Freeman (1995) and practical experiences in the field and in research (Baur & Borkovic, 2003).

Discussion/ Conclusions

The following five steps of the evaluation system will be given to discussion and explained by empirical data from various evalutions studies:
Definition of project goals and the target group (evaluability study, redefinition and modification)
Target group evaluation (is the target group reached?)
Network analysis (what are the effects in the networks?)
Development of the target group (what about the effects in the population?)
Perspectives for the future development (how can the work be improved?)

References

[1]. Baur J. & Borkovic V. (in print): Street Football for Tolerance - Evaluation of a community sport programme. University of Potsdam : Potsdam
[2]. Chisholm L., Büchner P., Krüger H.-H. & du Bois-Reymond M. (1995): Growing up in Europe. Contemporary Horizons in Childhood and Youth Studies. Walter de Gruyter : Berlin/New York 1995
[3]. Griesbeck J., Borkovic V. & Axster J. (2003): the streetfootballworld. The other dimension of the game. streetfootballworld : Berlin 2003
[4]. Hurrelmann K. & Engel U. (1989): The social world of adolescents. International perspectives. Berlin: de Gruyter.
[5]. Rossi P. & Freeman H. (1993): Evaluation. A systematic approach. Sage : London