Youth Programme Evaluation Checklist and Planning Worksheet
October 30, 2026 · Youth Development · 3 min read
A practical, free worksheet for youth programme teams planning what to measure, what evidence to collect and which decisions to make next. Copy the tables into your own document or print this page. No participant details need to be entered on this website.
1. Define the programme and the decision
| Planning field | Your notes |
|---|---|
| Programme, location and delivery period | ____________________________ |
| Young people the programme is intended to serve | ____________________________ |
| The need or barrier being addressed | ____________________________ |
| The decision this review will support | Continue / adapt / expand / pause / investigate |
| Review owner and decision date | ____________________________ |
Start with a decision that someone can actually make. A programme that aims to help young people enter employment needs a different review from one focused on participation, confidence or access to services. Agree the intended change before choosing a questionnaire.
2. Separate delivery from change
| Level | Question to answer | Your programme example |
|---|---|---|
| Activity | What did the team do? | ________________ |
| Output | What was delivered, and to whom? | ________________ |
| Outcome | What changed for the intended group? | ________________ |
| Assumptions | What else needs to happen for that change to last? | ________________ |
Attendance, sessions delivered and certificates describe delivery. They do not by themselves show that participants gained a skill, accessed an opportunity or used what they learned. Keep these measures separate in your reporting.
3. Build a small indicator plan
Choose only the indicators the team can collect responsibly and use. Define each one clearly enough that two team members would calculate it the same way. If a baseline is unavailable, record the gap rather than inventing a starting value.
| Indicator and definition | Baseline and date | Target or review question | Evidence and timing | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ________________ | ________________ | ________________ | ________________ | ________________ |
| ________________ | ________________ | ________________ | ________________ | ________________ |
| ________________ | ________________ | ________________ | ________________ | ________________ |
For a percentage, define the numerator and denominator, the reporting period and how missing responses are handled. Report the number of people reached as well as a percentage. A change among respondents may not describe everyone who joined the programme.
4. Listen to young people
- How were young people involved in identifying the need and shaping activities?
- Who was able to join, and who may have been excluded?
- What did participants find useful, difficult or irrelevant?
- What happened for people who did not complete the programme?
- How can participants give feedback without pressure to praise the team?
Use accessible methods suited to the participants and context. Follow your organisation’s safeguarding, consent and data-handling procedures. Collect only what is needed for the decision, keep identifying information out of public reports and do not promise confidentiality the team cannot maintain.
5. Review the evidence from more than one angle
The OECD’s evaluation criteria provide six useful lenses: relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability. Select and adapt the questions that fit your programme and review purpose; the criteria are not a scoring system or an evaluation method on their own.
- Relevance: Does the work still address the priorities young people describe?
- Coherence: Does it complement other support or duplicate it?
- Effectiveness: What evidence supports progress toward the intended outcomes?
- Efficiency: What do delivery time, resources and costs tell the team to change?
- Impact: What wider changes are visible, including unexpected effects?
- Sustainability: What support would help useful changes continue?
Distinguish an observed change from a claim that the programme caused it. Note other influences and the limits of your evidence. A simple before-and-after survey can support learning, but does not alone establish causal impact.
6. Turn findings into actions
| Finding and evidence | Decision or adaptation | Owner | Due date | Next evidence check |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ________________ | ________________ | ________________ | ________________ | ________________ |
| ________________ | ________________ | ________________ | ________________ | ________________ |
Before sharing the review
- Check that activities, outputs and outcomes are labelled separately.
- Show dates, definitions and the number of responses behind each measure.
- Identify missing evidence, assumptions and limitations.
- Include critical feedback and unexpected results, not only positive comments.
- Remove unnecessary identifying information.
- Assign a decision owner and a follow-up date.
Source and use
Reference: OECD, Applying Evaluation Criteria Thoughtfully (2021). The planning tables and youth-programme prompts above are an original Matsh working resource. They are not an OECD-endorsed instrument, accreditation checklist or substitute for a proportionate evaluation design.
For related learning, explore Matsh’s youth and professional development training. This worksheet can be used independently of a course or registration.
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