Making Every Day Count - Teens

Making Every Day Count: Boys & Girls Clubs’ Role in Promoting Positive Outcomes for Teens 40Endnotes1 Eccles, Jacquelynne and Jennifer Appleton Gootman(eds.). 2002.Community Programs to Promote Youth Development. Washington, DC:National Academies Press; Halpern, Robert. 2005. Confronting theBig Lie: The Need to Reframe Expectations of Afterschool Programs. NewYork City: Partnership for After School Education.2 For a review of the findings from studies involving Boys & GirlsClubs, see Arbreton, Amy, Jessica Sheldon and Carla Herrera. 2005.Beyond Safe Havens: A Review and Synthesis of 20 Years of Research onBoys & Girls Clubs. Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures.3 Arbreton, Amy J.A., Molly Bradshaw, Rachel Metz andJessica Sheldon with Sarah Pepper. 2008. More Time for Teens:Understanding Teen Participation—Frequency, Intensity andDuration—In Boys & Girls Clubs. Philadelphia: Public/PrivateVentures.4 The Clubs are: Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, Charlestown Boys& Girls Club; Boys & Girls Clubs of Broward County, MartiHuizenga Boys & Girls Club; Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater FortWorth, Martin Branch; Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Fort Worth,Panther Branch; Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee,Mary Ryan Boys & Girls Club; Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater SanDiego, Linda Vista Club; Boys & Girls Clubs of Omaha, SouthOmaha Boys & Girls Club; Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco,Columbia Park; Boys & Girls Clubs of Dorchester; West EndHouse Boys & Girls Clubs of Allston/Brighton. At each of theClubs, staff were asked to recruit 50 seventh- and eighth-gradeclub members to participate in the two-and-a-half-year study. Inorder to participate, a parent or guardian had to grant writtenpermission and youth had to sign an assent form. Between 27and 50 seventh- and eighth-grade youth completed the baselinesurvey at each Club for a total of 432 study participants acrossthe 10 Clubs. Club staff identified and surveyed youth who participatedregularly as well as those who attended less frequently.After the Spring 2008 survey, 10 youth who had been surveyed atbaseline were dropped from the evaluation when new data determinedthey had been in sixth grade at the start of the study.5 See National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. 1999.Risks and Opportunities: Synthesis of Studies on Adolescence. Forumon Adolescence. Michele D. Kikpke (ed.). Washington, DC:National Academies Press. See also Horwitz, Amanda and JasonSnipes. 2008. Supporting Successful Transitions to High School:Research Brief, Council of the Great City Schools. Washington, DC:Council of the Great City Schools. See also Grossman, JeanBaldwin and Siobhan M. Cooney. 2009. Paving the Way for Successin High School and Beyond: The Importance of Preparing Middle SchoolStudents for the Transition to Ninth Grade. Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures.6 Table A.2 in Appendix A indicates that the teen populations ineach of these Clubs ranged from about 30 to about 140 teensserved daily. This represented from 18 to 44 percent of the totalpopulation reported served daily at the 10 study Clubs, with anaverage of 26 percent. Across all Clubs nationally, BGCA reportsthat 32 percent of participants are teens ages 13 to 18 (see www.bgca.org), a slightly higher figure than reported by the 10 Clubsin this study.7 The baseline survey was administered between September 2005and February 2006; the follow-up survey was administered approximately30 months later, between February and April 2008.8 We interviewed a total of 56 ninth graders, ranging from oneto eight interviews per Club. These ninth graders talked with usabout how they initially got involved with the Clubs, what theydo at the Clubs, what they learn from staff at the Clubs and howthey feel about their first year of high school. The 56 youth represent31 percent of the total number of ninth graders in ourcohort (that is, ninth graders who completed a follow-up survey).The interviewed group is representative of this larger groupin terms of gender, race, academic achievement and participationin risk behaviors. Our interview sample was somewhat morelikely than the overall cohort to have attended the Club for alonger period of time and to have attended more frequently inthe past four weeks prior to the baseline survey. (Table B.1 inAppendix B provides more detail about the background characteristicsof the interviewed youth and how they compare with thetotal sample.)9 Because of the nature of the study, we also did not evaluatethe individual programs within the Clubs. In other words, thedata collection did not allow us to explicitly examine the onthe-groundquality of the activities in which the participantsengaged. We expect that the quality is good because the teensare choosing to participate; however, the study does not allowfor an in-depth analysis of either the Clubs or their specificprogramming.10 Respondents were all contacted by telephone and asked to completethe survey over the phone.11 Pedersen, S. and E. Seidman. 2005. “Contexts and Correlatesof Out-of-School Activity Participation Among Low-IncomeUrban Adolescents.” In J. Mahoney, R. Larson and J. Eccles(eds.), Organized Activities as Contexts of Development: ExtracurricularActivities, After-School and Community Programs, 85–109. Mahwah,NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.12 The average age of youth at the time of the first survey was 13.13 Table B.2 in Appendix B displays the demographics and othercharacteristics for the 422 youth who completed only the baselinesurvey in comparison to the 322 who completed both thebaseline and follow-up surveys. The two groups were found tohave similar characteristics on the measures assessed, with twoexceptions: Those who did not complete the follow-up startedthe study with more stressors in the year prior to the baselineand had had a shorter tenure at the Club.14 National data on BGCA membership show that 64 percentof those served by Clubs are minorities (see www.bgca.org).Because of high rates of high school dropout among Latino/ayouth, we were particularly interested in including Clubs in thestudy that served large numbers of Latino/a youth so we couldexplore whether the role of Clubs was as strong for this populationof youth as for others. Ultimately, we found that youth whoidentified themselves as Latino/a felt as engaged as those who