Losing Generations Adolescents in High-Risk Settings (1993) / Chapter Skim
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10 GOOD PRACTICE: COMMUNITY-BASED INTERVENTIONS AND SERVICES
10 GOOD PRACTICE: COMMUNITY-BASED INTERVENTIONS AND SERVICES
Pages 193-234
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From page 193... ...
For these adolescents and their families, specialized service programs may fill the gaps or compensate for failures in major life settings iSchorr et al., 19911. This chapter reviews the experience of service programs that attempt to meet the needs of adolescents experiencing complex, often health- or life-compromising problems.
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From page 194... ...
comprehensive service for adolescent development. We use the label "good practice" to identify those programs and interventions that have strong research and theoretical justification.
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From page 195... ...
Family support programs vary tremendously, but one common feature is an attempt to "extend" families by helping parents form both functional and emotional attachments to other parents. Most programs also have educational components, aimed at enhancing parenting skills, and many have training components to help parents enter, or progress within, the labor market.
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From page 196... ...
, a number of 'family preservation" or "homebuilder" programs seek to prevent the placement of children in foster care or other supervised settings. Typically, a trained case manager provides a family with intense short-term counseling and parent education, arranging for a broader spectrum of child welfare, health, and mental health services as needed.
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From page 197... ...
Exemplary programs directed toward teenage mothers are therefore unusually comprehensive-seeking to impart the parenting skills discussed above, but also to assist the mothers over the numerous hurdles standing between them and self-sufficiency, such as job training, child care, and transportation. Some family resource centers for example, those operated by Friends of the Family {Commission on Chapter 1, 1992J-have had some success inproviding essential services in a single site and offering referrals for services that cannot be provided.
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From page 198... ...
Other CDC programs broaden the array of services available to parents through the provision of family support and education, child care, and after-school programs ;Edelman and Radin, 1991; Leinberger, 19921.
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From page 199... ...
For these reasons, some CDCs operate day care, afterschoo! tutoring programs, child-famiTy activities, recreational programs, employment and training programs, and counseling Sullivan and DeGiovanni, 1991 I
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From page 200... ...
Such programs play a key role in development by giving young people a sense of membership, a chance to develop supportive relationships with a range of adults and peers, and an opportunity to develop functional and interpersonal skills necessary for healthy adolescent development {Pittman and Wright, 19911. Not surprisingly, community-based youth programs have been found to be an integral factor contributing to resiliency and positive self-identities among young people Werner and Smith, 1982; Heath and McLaughlin, 1991 I
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From page 201... ...
Community action youth programs demonstrate the value of using local residents in the effort to rebuild neighborhoods. In E1 Puente, for example, they have initiated a recycling program, formed an advocacy/action group t"The Toxic Avengers" to oppose the concentrations of toxic wastes in their neighborhood, established a AIDS education drama group, and conducted a measles immunization campaign.
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From page 202... ...
Program evaluations consistently find that such involvement enhances the academic achievement of students, particularly when parents take an active role as classroom tutors or engage in structurec3 home-based instruction that is complementary to, and reinforces, classroom instruction [Epstein, 1991 a; Swap, 1990; Eastman, 19881. Regardless of the type of involvement, schools must confront the fact that Tow-income and minority parents are often isolated from and distrustful of schools.
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From page 203... ...
Schoollinked health centers rarely provide contraception or refer pregnant teenagers for abortions; reviewers often note that the weakest components of school-based adolescent health centers are their family planning programs {Kirby and Waszak, 1989; Dryfoos, 1988; Levy and Shepardson, 1992~. Research indicates that the centers reach a large percentage of the student population in the schools where they are located and that they identify significant numbers of untreated or unrecognized health conditions.
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From page 204... ...
In response, some schools are forming collaborative programs with local family support and mental health services to provide counseling and early intervention services to students, both self-referrals and those identifier! by teachers.
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From page 205... ...
Incleed, the education system is becoming the dominant setting for preventive health services, as well as for substance abuse prevention, sex education, and violence prevention programs. The call for greater emphasis on basic skills has led to broader requirements for courses in math, reading, and science.
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From page 206... ...
Chapter 1 and dropout prevention programs are the traditional means for providing extra assistance to the most needy students. However, they are often de facto Tower tracks for students who have been retained.
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From page 207... ...
Explicit efforts are made to ensure that instruction is directly relevant to students' interests and concerns ~ LeTendre, 1991; Massachussets Advocacy Center and Center for Early Adolescence, 19881. A positive school climate one in which students fee!
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From page 208... ...
Employers have limited opportunities to work with prospective employees. In response to this lack of connection, the most innovative local initiatives in vocational education are designed for employers to provide supervised work experience to young people.
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From page 209... ...
In lieu of providing young people with structured work experience, many schools have opted for modifying instructional approaches, with particular emphasis on improving vocational education. Some efforts aim to integrate academic and vocational instruction by incorporating academic concepts into vocational programs or by coordinating the academic and vocational curriculum so that students are provided with complementary instruc ill Ail pi ~ t~ t1Vll~ V1 ~ V ~-~ ~lV~l~ ~ ~ ~ ^~-^ ~- r
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From page 210... ...
Many of the themes reflected in good practice in vocational education have been adopted by recent initiatives in employment and training programs. There is an emerging consensus that academic instruction is necessary to supplement traditional occupational training and job placement services.
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From page 211... ...
For example, some evidence supports the combination of early work experience with job training, the inclusion of remedial education in the array of services, and the combination of self-directed job search strategies and job placement programs. The program with the strongest positive effects lob Corps provides basic skills training, work experience, occupational training, and job placement services {Bailis, 1991; CarnevaTe, 1991; Hahn, 1991; Grant Foundation, 1988; U.S.
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From page 212... ...
Regardless of the structure, the goal of comprehensive service delivery systems is to transcend categorical labels, organizations, and funding sources to bring together an appropriate package of service that is easily accessible to young people and their families. Current national policies are not supportive of comprehensive service: almost all federal and state funding is allocated by "problem" to designated agencies responsible for designated services ;Dryfoos, 1990J.
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From page 213... ...
Mentors are often expected to be confidants and advocates and, in some programs, to develop collaborative relations with parents and school staff. The empirical foundation for mentoring programs stems from the literature on resiliency, which indicates that a key factor in successful adolescent development is the presence of a sustained and nurturing relationship with adults ;Garmezy, 1987; Rutter, 1987J.
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From page 214... ...
In most community-based youth development programs, such as The Door and E1 Puente, young people are given a primary counselor or mentor ~mmecl~ate~y on entering the program. Some schools have found that the traditional school counselors fait to meet the needs of at-risk youth and so are institutionalizing alternative methods of providing youth with close personal relationships.
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From page 215... ...
Another program, the Adolescent Pregnancy and Dropout Prevention Model, has reported an 88 percent school retention rate among teenage mothers served in the program. Success appears in part to be due to the case managers, who meet with teenage mothers on a regular basis to inform them about academic alternatives, help them identify job interests, and arrange for tutoring and home teaching Marie, 19891.
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From page 216... ...
For example, there is evidence that community learning and service programs enhance attachments to neighborhoods. That is, in well-designed programs, young people have been found to develop a greater interest in [Local issues and a perceived competence that they can bring about change Hamilton and Zeldin, 1987; National Task Force on Citizenship Education, 1977; Calabrese and Shumer, 1986; Newmann, 19 75 J
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From page 217... ...
An analysis of drug prevention programs found that, of five approaches examined, peer programs were the most effective on all outcome measures, especially on indices of actual drug use iTobler, 19861. In violence prevention programs, staff seer; to create a process by which young people discuss and analyze violent behavior and identify and practice alternative behaviors to deal with their anger.
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From page 218... ...
This approach has led to prevention programs that try to scare young people, ask them to "just say no," or disseminate didactic information. But studies consistently find that these traditional strategies of problem prevention (of substance abuse, sexual activity, violence)
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From page 219... ...
Many school-linked health centers, for example, attribute their effectiveness to the fact that participation is voluntary, discussions are confidential, and young people are encouraged to bring friends along for support. Few youth development programs have enrollment requirements, so young people can immediately participate in activities.
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From page 220... ...
In many programs, adolescents are given the responsibility of developing, implementing, and enforcing rules regarding drugs, violence, and conduct. Similarly, most community-based youth programs provide opportunities and expect adolescents to take responsibility for themselves and for others.
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From page 221... ...
In one multicultural training program for youth workers in Montgomery County, Maryland, youth and adults were grouped cross-racially and cross-ethnically. Evaluations indicate that the experiences provided a good basis for builcling rapport tWashington School Anti-Racism/Anti-Oppression Training Group, 1991~.
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From page 222... ...
The key to providing for adolescent needs is an approach based on the ideal of comprehensive services. In most instances this will mean pushing primary institutions to expand their horizons and build bridges, e.g., between schools and health care systems.
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From page 223... ...
Bazemore, G 1988 Promoting accountability in juvenile justice: the role of youth development agencies.
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From page 224... ...
1978 Who needs parent education? Teachers College Record 79~4~:767-787.
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From page 225... ...
1992 Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Differences in Youth Development Programs. Commissioned paper prepared for the Task Force on Youth Development and Community Programs, Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, Washington, D.C.
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From page 226... ...
1989 Adolescent Pregnancy and Dropout Prevention Project of NASBE. Unpublished report, National Association of State Boards of Education Washington, D.C.
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From page 227... ...
1988 Preventing Abuse of Drugs, Alcohol and Tobacco by Adolescents. Working paper, Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, New York.
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From page 228... ...
Hahn, A 1991 Inside Youth Programs: A Paper on the Limitations of Research.
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From page 229... ...
Weissbourn, and E.F. Zigler 1987 America's Family Support Programs: Perspectives and Prospects.
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From page 230... ...
1988 The Potential of School-Linked Centers to Promote Adolescent Health and Development. Working paper, Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, New York.
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From page 231... ...
New York: Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development. Polakow-Suransky, S., and N
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From page 232... ...
1992 Draft Report of the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development Task Force on Youth Development and Community Programs. Unpublished paper, Carnegie Corporation, New York.
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From page 233... ...
1988 Evaluation of school-based pregnancy prevention programs. TEC Newsletter 19:5-8.
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From page 234... ...
Zigler, E., and K Black 1989 America's family support movement: strengths andlimitations.
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