The foster youth education program strives to increase graduation rates by improving academic performance and encouraging student retention through an innovative collaboration between tutors, social workers, and schools to provide individualized support. The pilot program was funded by U.S. Department of Education Innovation Funds, which evolving mandated research requirements. These mandates propelled the local evaluator into a new role as a facilitator between the program evaluation needs and those of the federal research needs. In order for the evaluation to meet the federal mandates, the program had to evolve beyond their current evaluation model and into a more comprehensive evaluation model that incorporated the needs of both the program and the research. Discussion of the results will include a lessons learned and offer facilitation strategies for evaluators to incorporate into their work. The reflections on the process of the planning and designing of the evaluation as well as the evolving role of the evaluator as an independent consultant having to serve as facilitator are relevant and important both to evaluators as well as program administrators, policy makers, and other stakeholders. In particular, this paper will provide reflections and implications of this evaluation which was unique in its partnership both in terms of the program delivery and the evaluation. The program was an innovative effort and new partnership between local and national government agencies, a community base organization, and several school districts. The reflections shared will be related to the role of the evaluators' values through the facilitation process in the planning and designing process. The issue of how evaluators can and should be forthright and transparent about the values promoted in their work is critical, given the political context and the vulnerable population being served. A related issue is of how the evaluator values may influence the choice of facilitation strategies during the planning and designing process. [The report was prepared for the Children Youth and Family Collaborative (CYFC) by the Center for Nonprofit Management.]