Self-Reported Outcomes in a Randomized Trial of a Comm-Based Multi-Agency Prg

Project summary for 2000-JR-VX-0001
Self-report techniques will be employed to take advantage of a rare opportunity to evaluate the efficacy of an innovative delinquency prevention program with a true experimental design. The primary goal of the proposed research is to test the efficacy of the Youth and Family Accountability Model (YFAM) with probation case loads of 60 youth relative to the status quo home on probation (HOP) assignment with caseloads averaging 150 youth. YFAM combines intensive supervision, graduated sanctions, and a comprehensive (daily) youth and family community-based intervention drawing on resources from multiple agencies. The proposed study compares six month post-program self-reported outcomes for samples from the randomly equivalent HOP and YFAM groups. It complements a state-funded evaluation that will gather six month post-program outcome measures from probation case files and the juvenile automated index (JAI). For the proposed study, approximately 400 YFAM and 400 HOP will be interviewed six months post-program. The International Self-Reported Delinquency Questionaire will be adapted for these interviews, adding measures of selected risk and protection factors, Harter's perceived self-competence, and social integration at school and in the community. The YFAM program is designed to result in 1) less misbehaving and delinquent behavior; 2) less substance use; 3) more social integration; and 4) higher preceived self-competence than a randomly equivalent group of HOP youth over the six months immediately following their twelve month treatment period. Follow up analyses will test the efficacy of the program at low, medium and high levels of program intake risk, and will examine the impact the program has on selected risk and protection factors six months post-program.