Targeted Outreach - Governor's Office of Crime Control & Prevention ...

Youth’s Experiences at the Clubs 19
III.
Youth’s Experiences
at the Clubs
In the previous chapter, we identified the population
of youth reached by the GPTTO and GITTO efforts.
In this chapter, we take a closer look at the youth’s
level of involvement in and their experiences at the
Clubs/Projects. 9 The answers to the questions below
are critical precursors to whether youth were participating
with enough intensity and received the
intended experiences necessary for the Clubs to have
a significant impact on their lives. Specifically, we
address three questions:
• How involved were youth in the Clubs or
Intervention Project? One of the goals of both
intervention and prevention efforts is to
engage youth in a positive lifestyle as an alternative
to that of gangs. In order for Clubs to
have an effect of this magnitude, youth need to
attend the Club or Project frequently and over
an extended period of time.
• To what extent were youth receiving positive
supports through their involvement at the
Clubs? The Clubs take a youth development
approach to intervention and prevention, striving
to provide many of the same supports and
opportunities youth seek through gangs: excitement,
fun, caring adults, a sense of safety and a
feeling of belonging within a peer group
(Spergel, 1995; Vigil, 1988). Previous research
has demonstrated the importance of and strong
link between youth who receive these types of
developmental experiences and future positive
outcomes (see Gambone and Arbreton 1997 for
a review).
• Are youth’s background characteristics or the
supports they receive from the Clubs related to
how involved they stay? There are, of course,
different levels of participation and engagement
in any program. This question explores
the factors that contributed to continuing
involvement in the Clubs over one year’s time.
How Involved were Youth?
As the data in Table 10 reveal, the majority of youth
surveyed by the evaluators one year after they started
at the Clubs 10 were still participating in Boys & Girls
Club programming one year after their recruitment.
In fact, 73 percent of prevention and 68 percent of
intervention youth had gone to the Club or Project
at least once in the month before the 12-month follow-up
survey. Moreover, many of the target youth