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Youth
At Risk
The
Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Justice,
and other Federal agencies develop and implement effective methods of preventing
and controlling juvenile delinquency, gang participation, reduce dropout rates,
improve academic performance, provide abstinence education, and address the
immediate needs of runaway and homeless youth and their families.
Click on any title below to read more about the program.
News Concerning Adolescents
Updated :
The study reported in this article, a Multi-Stage Longitudinal Comparative Design Stage II evaluation conducted as a planned preliminary efficacy evaluation (psychometric evaluation of measures, short-term controlled outcome studies, etc.) of the Changing Lives Program (CLP), provided evidence for the reliability and validity of the qualitative measures under development as well as the utility of unifying qualitative (e.g., open coding, theoretical sampling/ saturation, etc.) and quantitative (e.g., quasi-experimental designs, advanced statistical analysis, psychometric analysis, etc.) research methods and procedures for evaluating intervention programs. Specifically, when analyzed using Relational Data Analysis, response data from the Life Course Interview yielded theoretically meaningful categories with robust levels of reliability and concurrent (external) validity. Additionally, the pattern of qualitative change for participants in the intervention condition, the CLP, were found to be positive, significant, and in the hypothesized direction relative to the comparison group, providing support for the feasibility of creating evidence-based youth development programs for promoting positive development in self and identity in troubled youth.
Contextualizing Latina girls' body image development requires an appreciation of mainstream body ideals, Latino/a cultural values, and the process by which Latina girls traverse the borders between them. The current study examines how media use and acculturation act across adolescence to shape the development of body image among Latina girls. Eighty-one Latina girls (ages 11 to 17) reported on their body satisfaction, acculturation, and use of mainstream, Black-oriented, and Spanish-language television. Fifty-two of these girls participated in a longitudinal follow-up 2 years later. Frequent viewing of mainstream television was associated with decreases in body image across adolescence. Frequent viewing of Black-oriented television was associated with greater body satisfaction, specifically among more acculturated girls. Illustrative quotes from a subset of participants are included.
The efforts of the Miami Youth Development Project reported in this special issue illustrate how Developmental Intervention Science (DIS; a fusion of the developmental and intervention science) extended to include outreach research contributes to the development of community-supported positive youth development programs. In the process, the articles further illustrate the general utility of Developmental Intervention Science outreach research in facilitating the use of descriptive and explanatory knowledge about changes within human systems that occur across the lifespan in the development of evidence-based individual and institutional change intervention strategies for promoting long-term developmental change. Additionally, the articles illustrate the considerable implications that the application of DIS outreach research has for future directions in knowledge of human development at all levels (practical as well as methodological, theoretical, and metatheoretical).
Although prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) programs are predicated on maternal behavior change, little is known about sociocultural factors affecting maternal—child care practices in this arena. The authors used narrative methods (key informant workshops, questionnaires, focus groups, and case study analysis) to explore how sociocultural context shapes adolescent mothers' ability to adhere to programmatic recommendations in rural and urban South Africa. The study aims were to understand the extent to which mothers' decisions are borne out in PMTCT-related practices and to identify contextual elements that affect the link between individual resolutions and action. The results revealed rural adolescents as less likely than urbanites to successfully implement most PMTCT-related practices. HIV stigma, family decision making, and cultural norms surrounding infant feeding hampered mothers' efforts to implement practices that would decrease the risk for infant infection. Barriers to behavior change were analyzed along four domains: history, culture, gender, and power. Methodological aspects and programmatic implications are discussed.
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Updated : Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:35:11 EST
The Moving to Opportunity program targeted families living in some of the nation's poorest, highest-crime neighborhoods and offered them a chance to move to lower poverty areas. One hope was that, away from concentrated poverty and the risks associated with itincluding poor physical and mental health, risky sexual behavior and delinquencyfamilies would fare better. This brief examines how adolescent girls benefited from moving out of high poverty and discusses why girls might have fared so much better than boys.
Author : paffairs@urban.org ( Susan J. Popkin, Tama Leventhal, Gretchen Weismann )
Publ.Date : Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST
This study examines employment outcomes for youth who age out of foster care through their middle twenties in three states: California, Minnesota, and North Carolina. The study linked child welfare, Unemployment Insurance (UI), and public assistance administrative data to assess outcomes. Results suggest that youth who age out of foster care continue to experience poor employment outcomes at age 24 and generally follow one of four employment trajectories as they transition to adulthood.
Author : paffairs@urban.org ( Jennifer Ehrle Macomber, Stephanie Cuccaro-Alamin, Dean Duncan, Daniel Kuehn, Marla McDaniel, Tracy Vericker, Mike Pergamit, Barbara Needell, Hye-Chung Kum, Joy Stewart, Chung-Kwon Lee, Richard P. Barth )
Publ.Date : Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST
The federal Moving to Opportunity program (MTO) was designed to help poor minority families move from distressed, high poverty neighborhoods to better locations, thereby improving their quality of life and long term chances for well-being. Low income families living in concentrated poverty face a variety of challenges to their safety, health, and economic health, including poor schools, high crime and unemployment. This brief examines areas where the MTO program helped movers with those challenges, areas still problematic even after moving, and factors affecting those outcomes and considers policy implications for the next generation of assisted housing mobility initiatives.
Author : paffairs@urban.org ( Margery Austin Turner, Xavier de Souza Briggs )
Publ.Date : Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST
In this Washington Examiner commentary, John Roman explains why automatically putting juvenile offenders in adult detention is a mistake: it can turn the teenagers into hardened criminals and sends the message that society has written them off.
Author : paffairs@urban.org ( John Roman )
Publ.Date : Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST
One way to achieve an ownership society is to endow all children with savings accounts starting at birth. This report shows that specific design features of a children's savings account program will impact the distribution of wealth. For example, non-taxability of account earnings distributes significantly more benefits to higher-income groups than to lower-income groups. Also, because many families experience mobility over their lifetimes, a significant portion of benefits conditioned on low annual income will accrue to middle- and higher-income families. Regardless, these accounts could be important in getting children banked and teaching them the value of saving and compound interest.
Author : paffairs@urban.org ( Barbara Butrica, Adam Carasso, C. Eugene Steuerle, Desmond Toohey )
Publ.Date : Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 EST
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