Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEPs) help connect youth to opportunities for career exploration, skill development, and mentorship. Despite heightened investment in SYEPs, research regarding positive impacts is limited. Most of the common SYEP evaluation strategies are rooted in deficit thinking and focus on outcomes such as reducing violent crime, risk behaviors, gaps in unemployment, and increasing educational attainment. Despite recent shifts toward approaches that acknowledge structural oppression in adolescent research more broadly, evaluations of SYEPs often perpetuate a discourse of deficiency about marginalized communities by emphasizing disparities without acknowledging the systemic forces that create them. In this article, we utilize the Five Cs of Positive Youth Development to present an alternative set of outcomes identified from focus groups and surveys with youth ages 16 to 24 who participated in SummerWorks, a 10-week SYEP located in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Specifically, we find that SYEPs may help youth make the transition to adulthood, build community and increase their social capital, and access knowledge, resources, and opportunities. Through this approach, we hope to expand the literature on the impacts of SYEPs and encourage antiracist evaluation strategies that build on these findings and challenge deficit thinking.

夏季青年就业计划 (SYEP) 帮助青年获得职业探索、技能发展和指导的机会。尽管对 SYEP 的投资增加，但关于积极影响的研究有限。大多数常见的 SYEP 评估策略都植根于赤字思维，并侧重于诸如减少暴力犯罪、危险行为、失业差距和提高教育程度等结果。尽管最近转向更广泛地承认青少年研究中的结构性压迫的方法，但对 SYEP 的评估往往通过强调差异而不承认造成它们的系统性力量而使关于边缘化社区的缺陷的话语永久化。在本文中，我们利用积极青年发展的五个 C 来呈现一组替代结果，这些结果是从焦点小组和调查中确定的，这些结果是从参加 SummerWorks 的 16 至 24 岁青年中确定的，这是一个位于密歇根州沃什特诺县的为期 10 周的 SYEP。具体而言，我们发现 SYEP 可以帮助青年过渡到成年，建立社区并增加他们的社会资本，并获得知识、资源和机会。通过这种方法，我们希望扩展关于 SYEP 影响的文献，并鼓励基于这些发现和挑战赤字思维的反种族主义评估策略。建立社区并增加他们的社会资本，并获得知识、资源和机会。通过这种方法，我们希望扩展关于 SYEP 影响的文献，并鼓励基于这些发现和挑战赤字思维的反种族主义评估策略。建立社区并增加他们的社会资本，并获得知识、资源和机会。通过这种方法，我们希望扩展关于 SYEP 影响的文献，并鼓励基于这些发现和挑战赤字思维的反种族主义评估策略。