NCJ Number
193897
Date Published
1998
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This is the executive summary of the impact evaluation of the Children at Risk (CAR) Program, a comprehensive intervention designed to prevent drug use and delinquency among high-risk youth and promote healthy development among vulnerable children.
Abstract
The program targeted high-risk environments, namely, small, well-defined neighborhoods characterized by extreme poverty, high crime, and intense social distress, aiming to reduce the overall exposure of youth to crime and drug activity in such neighborhoods. CAR identified high-risk youth with the help of schools or the justice system and delivered a set of intensive core services across a 2 year period. The youth had to be 11- to 13-years-old at the time of recruitment and attend middle school in the neighborhood. CAR was tested in a demonstration setting in six sites, and it was evaluated in five of the sites. For the evaluation, 654 youth in specific schools in the target neighborhoods were randomly assigned either to a treatment group (participated in CAR in addition to the benefits of a safer neighborhood) or to a control group (benefited only from the safer neighborhood). In addition, 203 youth from other high-risk neighborhoods in each CAR city were included in the study as a comparison group. Evaluation data were obtained from interviews with the sample youth at the time of program entry, 2 years later at the end of the intervention period, and 1 year after the end of the program. A parent or primary caregiver was interviewed before the start of the program and at the end of the program period. Records from schools, police, and courts were collected annually on each youth in the sample. The evaluation found that CAR youth were less likely to have used gateway drugs or stronger drugs in the past month compared with youth in the control groups, and CAR youth were also less likely to have used gateway drugs in the past year. Further, CAR youth were less likely to have sold drugs in the past month and in their lifetime compared with youth in the control group; and CAR youth committed fewer violent crimes in the past year compared with youth in the control group. CAR youth were also more likely to be promoted in school; however, CAR youth did not have significantly higher grades or rates of attendance. This report presents lessons on program implementation from the process evaluation and discusses CAR replications. 6 figures