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

34 Targeted Outreach
Clubs had varying experiences trying to engage
schools in collaboration and referrals. At one Club
where the relationship between the schools and the
Club was solid, the relationships became even
stronger because the Club employs teachers as afterschool
instructors, and former Club staff are teachers
at nearby schools. In another city, a middle school
principal expressed her positive response to the Club
staff’s willingness to spend time at the school over
the lunch hour and hang out with the youth in the
lunch room and school yard. She felt that by doing
so, they helped the youth and the teachers to be
more aware of what the Clubs could offer and how
they could help the teachers. Not surprisingly, at
Clubs where the buy-in of the local schools is greatest,
the Club staff’s ability to follow up on youth’s
progress at school and identify educational areas of
need are also greatest.
Responsiveness to the Clubs from any of these outside
agencies took time to build. One Club indicated
it spent a year reaching out to multiple agencies with
little response. At the start of their second year of
GPTTO, the Club focused on fewer agencies and was
subsequently able to build a solid relationship with
probation that is leading to new referrals.
Relationships between partner agencies and the
Clubs not only take time to establish, they also
require ongoing maintenance. Staff turnover at the
partner agencies is a key obstacle to maintaining
relationships. Partner agencies felt keeping staff at
their agency familiar with the program would help
improve the Clubs’ effectiveness. Partner agency
staff felt that they would benefit from at least a
yearly presentation so that the word about GPTTO
and GITTO would be transmitted effectively to new
staff. In order to maximize the potential for the relationship
to produce referrals and partnerships,
training sessions and contact with organizations
should occur more frequently than yearly.
The establishment of a network of partnerships with
other agencies is a prerequisite to success in recruitment
and outreach, particularly with regard to referrals
both into and out of the Club. The next section
describes the recruitment process.
Recruitment
The Clubs’ existing recruitment efforts (i.e., word of
mouth, membership drives) would not have been
sufficient to reach the youth intended for GPTTO
and GITTO. Youth most at risk of gang involvement
or hard-core gang members are not likely to walk
through the doors of the Club on their own (Boys &
Girls Clubs of America, 1993). Thus, the Clubs
involved in the initiative had to make special efforts
to identify appropriate youth and entice them into
the Club.
To identify and recruit youth at risk of gang involvement
and those who are already gang members,
BGCA recommends two general approaches. The
first is direct outreach, which typically consists of
Club staff getting to know youth outside the Club
and encouraging them to join. The second is recruiting
youth via referrals, which requires developing
strong ties with community agencies and organizations
that can direct youth to Clubs and their staff.
Clubs utilizing GPTTO and GITTO used both methods
of recruitment.
Direct Outreach
As noted in Chapter II, 35 percent of the prevention
and 29 percent of the intervention target youth were
recruited through direct outreach. The proportions
ranged from 0 percent to 83 percent among prevention
Clubs and 0 percent to 60 percent among intervention
Clubs. All Clubs, however, attempted to
recruit through direct outreach, with varying success
for different methods.
Direct outreach at schools appeared to be one of the
more effective methods. Five Clubs noted that going
to schools, hanging out there and passing out flyers—with
the approval of school administrators—
helped them identify youth and attract their interest.
Even though these efforts took place on school
grounds, we can consider them to be direct outreach
because they did not involve teacher referrals.
Six Clubs noted the importance of having an outreach
coordinator who visits schools, goes to parks
and other youth hangouts and visits youth homes.
Several Clubs hired members of the local community
with whom families and youth felt comfortable.