NCJ Number
210380
Journal
Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Dated: July 2005 Pages: 265-275
Date Published
July 2005
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This article reports on "evaluability assessments" (measurement of readiness for evaluation) of three programs under the jurisdiction of the Juvenile Justice Commission of the State of New Jersey (JJC).
Abstract
One of the programs, the Hudson County YAP (Youth Advocacy) Challenge Aftercare Program, provides case management and advocacy services to youth who return to the community from confinement in the State training school. These are services over and above those provided by parole agencies. The second program, Operation Hook-Up, which is a relatively new program that has just begun to serve clients, is a faith-based program that receives funding from the State to provide services to youth returning to the community after participation in a type of juvenile boot camp. The third program, the Monmouth County Bullying Prevention Project, is being operated by a private nonprofit organization for the purpose of preventing bullying in selected schools through the use of a Blueprint Model Program developed by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. Methods used in the evaluability assessments of these programs included site visits and a review of program documents that provided information on the size and characteristics of the actual or projected target population, as well as on project goals and intervention activities. The final step of the evaluability assessment was a joint meeting with all program stakeholders and JJC representatives for the purpose of sharing assessment results and recommendations, as well as presenting a formal evaluation plan. Agreement was reached to conduct an impact evaluation of the Challenge Program and a small-scale qualitative process evaluation of Operation Hook-Up. It was agreed not to undertake a formal evaluation of the Bullying Prevention Program at this time due to program-specific structural, methodological, and contextual problems. 17 references