What characteristics are shared by programs that are successful in reducing the rates of violence, antisocial behavior, and risky health behavior in adolescents? (Juvenile Corrections)

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers may vary.In 2004, the National Institutes of Health assembled a "state of the science" conference entitled Preventing Violence and Related Health-Risking Social Behaviors in Adolescents. Summarizing the evidence presented at this conference, the organizers concluded that there are certain characteristics shared by programs that are successful in reducing the rates of violence, antisocial behavior, and risky health behavior in adolescents:

• They are derived from sound theoretical rationales.• They address strong risk factors (such as substance abuse, family problems, and educational problems).• They involve long-term treatments, often lasting a year and sometimes much longer.• They work intensively with those targeted for treatment and often use a clinical approach.• They follow a cognitive behavioral strategy.• They are multimodal and multicontextual (they use different kinds of interventions and deliver them in different contexts, such as home and school).• They focus on improving social competency and other skill development strategies for targeted youth and/or their families.• They are developmentally appropriate.• They are not delivered in coercive institutional settings.• They have the capacity for delivery with fidelity (meaning that services are delivered as intended).Likewise, there are common elements of programs that appear to be ineffective:• They fail to address strong risk factors.• They are of limited duration.• They aggregate high-risk youth in ways that facilitate contagion (i.e., the incarcerated youth are influenced by the antisocial behavior modeled by their peers).• Their implementation protocols are not clearly articulated.• Their staff are not well supervised or held accountable for outcomes.• They are limited to scare tactics (e.g., Scared Straight) or toughness strategies (e.g., classic boot camps).• They consist largely of adults lecturing at youth (e.g., the classic drug abuse resistance education program D.A.R.E.).