title: Building on a YMCA's health and physical activity promotion capacities: A case study of a researcher-organization partnership to optimize adolescent programming_.
abstract: School-based physical activity programs are only effective for increasing adolescents' school-based physical activity. To increase out-of-school-time physical activity, complementary community programs are warranted. Partnerships between universities and community organizations may help build the capacity of these organizations to provide sustainable programs. To understand capacity building processes and outcomes, we partnered with a YMCA to build on their adolescent physical activity promotion capacity. Together, we designed and implemented means to evaluate the YMCA teen program to inform program planning. For this qualitative case study, emails and interviews and meetings transcripts were collected over 2.5 years and analyzed using inductive and deductive thematic analysis. Findings illustrate that the YMCA's workforce and organizational development capacities (e.g., evaluation and health promotion capacity and competence) were increased through our partnership, resource allocation, and leadership. We responded to YMCA partners' perceived needs, yet guided them beyond those needs, successfully combining our complementary objectives, knowledge, and skills to generate an integrated program vision, rationale, and evaluation results. This provided YMCA partners with validation, reminders, and awareness. In turn, this contributed to programming and evaluation practice changes. In light of extant capacity building literature, we discuss how our partnership increased the YMCA's capacity to promote healthy adolescent programs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, McGill University, 5858 ch. de la Côte-des-Neiges, Montreal, Quebec, H3S 1Z1, Canada. Electronic address: paula.bush@mcgill.ca.
authors.forename: Paula Louise
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Bush
authors.affiliation: Participatory Research at McGill (PRAM), Department of Family Medicine, McGill University, 5858 ch. de la Côte-des-Neiges, Montreal, Quebec, H3S 1Z1, Canada(1). Electronic address: enrique.garcia@mail.mcgill.ca.
authors.forename: Enrique
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: García Bengoechea
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000067697:Adolescent Health; D057191:Capacity Building / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration; D055812:Community-Based Participatory Research; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D015444:Exercise; D020446:Fitness Centers / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007857:Leadership; D009517:New South Wales; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D011204:Poverty Areas; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012108:Research Personnel / Q000458:organization & administration*
keywords: Capacity building; Case study; Community organization; Health promotion; Physical activity; Program evaluation