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

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Targeted Outreach
4. Providing individualized case management
across four areas (law enforcement/juvenile justice,
school, family and Club) to target youth to
decrease gang-related behaviors 1 and contact
with the juvenile justice system, and to increase
the likelihood that they will attend school and
show improved academic success.
Because one approach is preventive and the other an
intervention with youth who are already exhibiting
gang behaviors, these components translated into different
implementation strategies in the two initiatives.
For example, the youth in the intervention project
need different services (e.g., drug treatment, tattoo
removal, job training, educational services), than
those in the prevention group. Therefore, the organizations
with whom Clubs develop their network would
also differ. Further, prevention youth mainstreaming
into Club programming is immediate, whereas it
occurs much later for a hard-core gang member or
youth who has been entrenched in the gang lifestyle
and negative behaviors. Nevertheless, each of the four
components is a building block for the success of
both the intervention and prevention initiatives.
A major component of both GPTTO and GITTO is
the Clubs’ attention to recruitment of hard-to-reach
youth. Club staff develop strategies to draw in youth
who have not typically been involved in productive
after-school activities and those who might not have
joined the Club without some external encouragement.
Youth are identified and recruited through
direct outreach and referrals from such resources as
school personnel, social service agencies, police and
probation. The prevention model recruits youth into
local Boys & Girls Clubs to participate in all aspects of
Club programming. The intervention model recruits
youth to participate in a project that is staffed by Boys
& Girls Clubs, but is run separately (either after typical
Club hours or on a more one-on-one case management
basis) from daily Club activities.
Studies show that Boys & Girls Clubs serve at-risk
youth and provide them with important positive
developmental supports (Gambone and Arbreton,
1997; Feyerherm et al., 1992). Other studies have
called the GPTTO and GITTO approaches promising
(Esbensen, 2000; Howell, 2000). Their emphasis
on community mobilization, recruitment of highrisk
youth, new programming strategies and case
management reflect a shift in Club philosophy and
implementation. Implementing the GPTTO or
GITTO approach at a Club changes the culture of
the Club—how it works with other agencies, how it
thinks about recruitment and the youth it serves,
how programming is designed and implemented,
its hours of operation, how staff interact with youth,
and the level of documentation maintained about
individual youth.
Because the approaches undertaken by each Club
are designed within the framework of the four components
of GPTTO and GITTO (and their intended
outcomes), there are many similarities among the
Clubs and how they operate their initiatives. Because
the Clubs’ communities, gang problems, resources
and infrastructure differ, there is not one specific
way to implement GPTTO or GITTO; therefore,
there is no single model or program. Clubs themselves
identify the specifics: target populations they
will serve given the risk factors prevalent for gangs in
their area; the community agencies with which they
will collaborate; and the programming they will offer
based on the needs and interests of the groups of
youth they serve. Because there is no single, specific
model, we describe the approaches the Clubs take to
address the four components of the initiatives.
The Evaluation
In 1997, with funding from OJJDP and The Pinkerton
Foundation, P/PV embarked on an evaluation of
GPTTO and GITTO. The aims of the study were:
• To learn if the Clubs succeeded at attracting
youth at high risk of gang involvement;
• To discover if the Clubs could keep GPTTO
and GITTO youth participating at the Club or
program;
• To determine if GITTO and GPTTO youth
were indeed receiving positive supports through
their participation in the Club; and
• To assess if participation had a positive effect on
the lives of GPTTO and GITTO youth.
The specific outcomes of interest to BGCA and pursued
in this evaluation were decreased levels of gang
behaviors, decreased contact with the juvenile justice
system, and increased levels of academic achievement
and positive school behaviors. We also wanted
to understand what worked for Clubs implementing