From Extraction to Affirmation: Trust-Based Evaluation and Authentic Data Collection

Garrett Mason I June, 2025

“When we only collect data about what’s broken, we miss what’s holding our young people together.”

What if we stopped asking what’s wrong with young people and started asking what’s working for them?

In the movement to end youth homelessness, data is often used to track “risk factors” like justice involvement, LGBTQ+ identity, experiences of abuse, or disconnection from education and employment. While these metrics can help identify vulnerabilities, they rarely tell the full story and often center deficit over dignity.

What’s missing is a shift in mindset: from risk to resilience. Instead of collecting data solely to document problems, we need to start measuring and uplifting the strengths, assets, and protective factors that keep youth grounded, connected, and safe. This is the foundation of strengths-based data collection and it has the power to transform how we approach prevention.

What Is Strengths-Based Data?

Strengths-based data focuses on the positive internal and external factors that protect youth from housing instability and promote long-term well-being. These include:

Supportive adult relationships
Creative expression and identity development
Youth leadership and civic engagement
Cultural connection and community belonging
Personal resilience, hope, and goal orientation

According to the American Institutes for Research, these “protective factors” help buffer young people from systemic harms and reduce the likelihood of entering homelessness even in the presence of risk factors.

In practice, strengths-based data could look like:

Tracking how many youth feel connected to a mentor or trusted adult
Documenting increases in self-esteem, hopefulness, or leadership capacity
Lifting up youth stories about how creative outlets or community spaces kept them safe

How Can We Collect Strengths-Based Data?

To center youth resilience in evaluation, practitioners and researchers can:

Co-create Data Tools with Youth
Involve youth in designing surveys, intake forms, and feedback tools. Ask what they want programs to know and measure.
Measure Protective Factors Alongside Risk
Add questions about relationships, identity affirmation, creativity, and coping skills, not just trauma history.
Use Narrative, Visual, or Arts-Based Methods
Data doesn’t have to mean spreadsheets. Storytelling, journaling, and art can be rigorous tools for capturing impact.
Invest in Continuous, Real-Time Feedback
Build systems where youth can regularly share what’s working so, programs adapt to their evolving strengths and needs.
Elevate Strengths in Case Management and Reporting
Flip intake and progress notes to focus on growth, not just barriers. Track how youth use their assets to meet goals.

Programs like the Houvast model in the Netherlands have shown that strengths-based approaches can improve youth autonomy, mental health, and housing outcomes (BMC Public Health).

Why Does This Matter for Youth Homelessness Prevention?

Too often, youth homelessness prevention focuses on fixing people instead of fixing systems. When data only reflects what’s broken, it reinforces harmful narratives and misses the full picture of youth brilliance and survival.

But when we start affirming identity, uplifting assets, and documenting resilience, we unlock several possibilities:

We shift power. Youth become collaborators and knowledge-holders, not just data points.
We unlock better outcomes. Research shows that positive identity, connection, and purpose reduce the risk of homelessness (PMC, ERIC).
We fund upstream solutions. Strengths-based data supports investment in mentoring, creative outlets, youth organizing, and chosen family care, critical but often underfunded.

From Metrics to Meaning

In the words of one youth advocate: “I’m more than my trauma. I’m also what’s kept me going.” It’s time our data reflects that truth. As we build systems to prevent and end youth homelessness, let’s reimagine evaluation not as a compliance tool, but as a source of collective insight. Let’s count what counts: connection, creativity, leadership, love, and belonging. Because if we want to build a future where all youth are housed and thriving, we have to start measuring the roots of their resilience.

– Garrett Mason

MEET THE author

Garrett Mason

Garrett Mason, III is a multi-hyphenate creative, advocate, and youth leader dedicated to advancing cultural equity, social justice, and community empowerment. As a published author, recording artist, fashion designer, and ballroom house father, Garrett blends art and advocacy to inspire systemic change. He consults nationally on youth homelessness prevention, legal equity, and generational wealth building, centering lived experience and creative expression as tools for healing and liberation. His work amplifies marginalized voices and reimagines futures where all people thrive in unconditional love and unapologetic joy.