Citation

Emshoff JG, Blakely CH. Child. Youth Serv. Rev. 1983; 5(4): 343-356.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1983, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0190-7409(83)90002-6

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper describes the practices of the Adolescent Diversion Project and presents some research evaluating the program's effectiveness. The youth were referred to the project as an alternative to further court processing. These youth were randomly assigned to the project or to a control group which received treatment as usual by the court. Project youth were assigned to work with college undergraduates for 18 weeks. The two basic intervention techniques employed were behavioral contracting and advocacy. Project youth were further randomly assigned to one of two intervention conditions within the project. The Multi-Focus group applied the above strategies to a variety of social domains of the youth, while the Family Condition focused entirely on the family. Research results focused on standard outcome criteria (police, court, and school data) as well as on the degree to which the experimental conditions differed in practice.