A Process and Outcome Evaluation of the 4-H Mentoring/ Youth and ...

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empirically-based best practices in mentoring. But, the program staff should make this assessment and adjust the guide to better reflect what is actually happening in programs and, where specific guidelines are considered critical, to “enforce” these more aggressively. If in fact a lack of sufficient program “dosage” is a valid explanation for the lack of positive outcomes for the YFP program, then we might expect to find more positive outcomes in youth who received more “dosage” than those who did not. This was not in fact the case here: youth who received at least two-thirds of the required program were no more likely to have had significantly positive outcomes than those who did not. It may be, however, that our measure of dosage was too crude to detect the necessary differences between these groups. In addition, the proportion of youth who received sufficient dosage, as we conceptualized it, may have been too small for significant differences to be seen. There does seem to be a subset of youth for whom the program had very little positive effect. Those youth who tended to be higher functioning prior to their participation in YFP, as measured by their pre-test scores on the BERS-2 subscales, seemed to participate less in program activities and were more likely to be discharged early from the program. Those youth who were discharged early were less likely to have shown positive changes on the BERS-2 subscales over the course of the first eight months of the program. This suggests that lower risk/needs youth who enter the program are less likely to attend and therefore to benefit from program activities. This being the case, the program might want to bolster its screening process to screen out these relatively high functioning youth. To the extent to which program interventions caused changes, these were likely due to participation in 4-H activities and mentor meetings, since these were the interventions youths were most likely to receive. Though there was wide variation by site and youths, on average a 145
youth met with their mentor once every few weeks, attended a 4-H activity every few weeks, and went to a Family Night Out every few months. Many sites offered a greater number of 4-H activities than youths were required to attend, and this was reflected in the finding that youths participated in so many 4-H activities. The YFP program seemed to have no specified length of time. Although we were initially led to believe that the presumptive length of the program was around eight or nine months (i.e., one school year), it was common for youths to be in the program for longer than a year. In fact, the program staff and administrators we spoke with indicated that they would like to keep the youths involved until they age out of the program (at age 15). This appeared in fact to be happening: few youths appeared to have ever graduated from the program. While there may be nothing inherently wrong with keeping youth involved in the program for long periods of time, our assessment suggests that most of the change that YFP youths experienced occurred during the first year or so of the program. While some improvement was noted on some of the BERS-2 scales from the pre-test to the second post-test, around 20 months later, this improvement was slight when compared with the initial gains. It may be possible, therefore, to develop a supplemental, less resource-intensive program to which youth can transition after their first year in the program. This might consist, for example, of fewer mentoring sessions and more 4-H activities, which might allow the YFP program to serve a greater number of youth while still keeping youth involved with the program for long periods of time. Further research could explore what the optimal time period is for obtaining desired outcomes, and what combination of services is most likely to produce those outcomes. Matches between youths and mentors lasted, on average, just under 10 months; little mentoring occurred over the summer months. Some previous research suggests that positive 146
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A Process and Outcome Evaluation of
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CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ...
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Table 22. Positive Mentee Changes R
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Table 68. Court Involvement in Thir
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There were many pe
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YFP/4-H Mentoring Evaluation variou
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YFP/4-H Mentoring Evaluation REVIEW
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YFP/4-H Mentoring Evaluation Youths
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Page 117 and 118: • youths ages 12 to 17 at admit,
Page 119 and 120: etween boys in the two groups. When
Page 121 and 122: Predicting Change on the BERS-2 Sub
Page 123 and 124: Table 50. Predictors of Change on A
Page 125 and 126: Table 53. BERS-2 Pretest Subscale S
Page 127 and 128: Table 55. Correlation Between YRM S
Page 129 and 130: two, youths reported that mentor ac
Page 131 and 132: Given these very low numbers, we di
Page 133 and 134: differences in the proportion of yo
Page 135 and 136: Table 67. Court Involvement in Firs
Page 137 and 138: youths’ perspectives regarding th
Page 139 and 140: percentage (83%) of comparison yout
Page 141 and 142: Table 73. How Much the Program Help
Page 143 and 144: youths were closest to “mostly Bs
Page 145 and 146: skipped school, but improvement on
Page 147 and 148: PROGRAM COSTS Overview In order to
Page 149 and 150: There was substantial variation by
Page 151 and 152: school performance nor scores on th
Page 153: for several subscales they continue
Page 157 and 158: differences is the concentration of
Page 159 and 160: court-involved. It may be that thos
Page 161 and 162: of a weak method, the “retrospect
Page 163 and 164: started out equivalent, we would ha
Page 165 and 166: implementation matched the program
Page 167 and 168: The results from our study of 4-H M
Page 169 and 170: REFERENCES Ahrens, K., DuBois, D.,
Page 171 and 172: Freedman, M. (1993). The Kindness o
Page 173 and 174: Larose, S., Ceyrenne, D., Garceau,
Page 175 and 176: Scales, P.C., & Leffert, N. (2004).
Page 177 and 178: APPENDIX B: SITE-SPECIFIC INFORMATI
Page 179 and 180: Table B2. YFP Activities During the
Page 181 and 182: Table B4. Average Number of In-Pers
Page 183 and 184: Table B6. Site Type and Use of High
Page 185 and 186: Table B8. Reasons for Referral Beha
Page 187 and 188: Table B10. Mentor Characteristics S
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