Youth Offender Demonstration Project Process Evaluation Final Report: Round Two
Youth Offender Demonstration Project Process Evaluation Final Report: Round Two
Publication Info
Description
The Youth Offender Demonstration Project provided assistance to youth at-risk of court or gang involvement, youth offenders, and gang members between the ages of 14 and 24 to find long-term employment at wage levels that would prevent future dependency and would break the cycle of crime and juvenile delinquency. The objective of the demonstration was to identify effective community strategies that support youth in becoming work ready and capable of attaining and keeping employment that provides a future of economic stability and supports civic engagement. The community efforts focused on infrastructure development, building upon systems already in place in the community for serving youth. The demonstration also identified the range of services that some youth participants were likely to require, and provided technical assistance in meeting the challenges a community would address in changing the systems to serve targeted youth more effectively.
The Process Evaluation documented the implementation process of the nine Round Two projects over the duration of the demonstration. In addition, the evaluation notes achievements and challenges as project staffs attempted to deliver coordinated services to targeted youth. The evaluation examined the activities of key actors, dimensions of project organization, relationships among partners, and environmental characteristics identified as factors that affect project implementation success. Following is a sampling of the research questions included in the evaluation:
- How did the community planning bodies charged with the on-going tasks of designing the integrated network of services function and what was the level of involvement of the stakeholders, including parents and youth?
- What program components were implemented and how successful were the efforts to build on existing systems, establish new programs, and create an integrated network?
- What methods were used to gain access to and recruit members of the target population as program participants and how successful were they?
- What types of training, employment, and gang suppression programs were provided to the target population? What were the intensity, duration, and quality of those programs?