Longitudinal Study of the Impact of a Family Empowerment Intervention on Juvenile Offender Psychosocial Functioning: A First Assessment

• NCJ Number: 178352
• Journal: Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Dated: 1998 Pages: 15-54
• Author(s): Richard Dembo; Marina Shemwell; Julia Guida; James Schmeidler; Kimberly Pacheco; William Seeberger
• Date Published: 1998
• Length: 40 pages
• Grant Number(s): 1-R01-DA08707
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute on Drug Abuse
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper reports on the results of a longitudinal analysis that examined the impact of the services of the Youth Support Project (YSP) in Tampa, Fla., which is a systems approach designed to improve the functioning of youth entering the juvenile justice system, along with the functioning of their families.

Abstract

Families involved in the project are randomly assigned to one of two groups: the Extended Services Intervention (ESI) or the Family Empowerment Intervention (FEI) group. ESI group families receive monthly phone contacts from the project research assistants, and FEI group families receive personal visits from project field consultants. The field consultants work with families on the following goals: restoring the family hierarchy; restructuring boundaries between parents and children; encouraging parents to take greater responsibility for family functioning; increasing family structure through implementation of rules and consequences; enhancing parenting skills; having parents set limits, expectations, and rules that increase the likelihood that the target youth's behavior will improve; improving communication and problem solving skills; and connecting the family to other systems. Youth were stratified by gender, race, and ethnicity before being randomly selected for enrollment into the YSP. Ninety-five youths who entered the project during its first year and who completed follow-up interviews were involved in the analyses. The results of the analyses document specific areas of psychosocial functioning and types of youths impacted by the intervention services. Overall, the results of the analyses show statistically significant relationships between the various blocks of predictor variables and the different substance use and psychosocial outcome measures. The results of the longitudinal analyses suggest the promise of the FEI. 7 tables and 37 references