Second Opportunity for Success: Youth and Parent Outcomes

Overview: Second Opportunity for Success (SOS) is a diversion program for first time juvenile offenders and their parents. The program was evaluated using pre-post design and through mixed methods, which included surveys, interviews and observations. The poster will include findings on how youth and parents benefitted from program participation.Proposal text:

Background: According to State of America’s Children Report ,1909 children are arrested in the United States each day, and roughly 700,000 children were arrested in 2019 (OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book, 2020). Past research has identified benefits of diversion programs in addressing juvenile delinquency (Seigle et al., 2014). This study contributes to the literature through the evaluation of Second Opportunity for Success, a 7-week community based, psycho-education program for youth and their family.

Methods: The study included multiple informants, diverse methods, and repeated measures to evaluate program benefits for the youth, parent-child relationships, and their families. Twenty-seven families participated in the pre-test and post-test, which included surveys, conflict resolution tasks, and interviews to track changes in youth’s self-esteem, resistance to peer pressure, and social skills as well as parent’s disciplining approaches, parent-child interaction, and youth’s ability to resolve conflicts.

Results: Youth scores on resistance to peer pressure showed an increase that approached statistical significance. Similarly, youth improved significantly on their ability to resolve conflicts with parents. Parent scores on the use of corporal punishment decreased significantly and they expressed less anger during post program observation task. Analyses of qualitative interviews highlight additional program benefits for youth and parents. Three month follow up indicated positive school and community adjustment among program participants.

Discussion: Diversion programs are an increasingly effective alternative to youth arrest and involvement in the juvenile justice system. They have been shown to offer a multitude of psychological benefits to youth and their families as well as financial benefits to the community (Fabelo et al., 2015). Moreover, engaging families in these interventions is viewed as a best practice for sustainable benefits and long-lasting outcomes (Kretschmar et al., 2018; Loeb et al., 2015). Findings from our preliminary evaluation confirm the many benefits of the program to both the youth and parents, as well as underscore the importance of engaging both the youth and their family in diversion interventions.

Connection to Conference Theme: Human Rights are Global Rights is an important and timely theme. Our proposal focuses on rights of a young offender to be treated with dignity and respect. Instead of using approaches linked to high recidivism rates and adult crime, the diversion program described in the proposal offers youth and families with a community based alternative from which all stakeholders stand to benefit psychologically, relationally, and/or financially. The proposal also aligns with two of the 12 social work grand challenges. The youth and family based program approach promotes individual and family wellbeing to reduce youth offenses. Similarly, the program provides a blueprint for smart decarceration, and thereby contributes to the grand challenge of creating a just society.

Implications for Social Work Education: The multiple methods approach utilized in this study can serve as a case study in program evaluation classes to educate future social work scholars to utilize novel approaches to examine program benefits. Similarly, the program mission and content can be utilized to spearhead critical conversations on best practices to address juvenile delinquency.