Crime, Juvenile Delinquency
Conditions
Keywords
mentoring, prevention
Brief summary
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) community-based mentoring (CBM) program for prevention of crime and delinquency/conduct problems, including risk and protective factors for these outcomes. Approximately 2,500 youth ages 10-16 will be randomly assigned to either the CBM program or an untreated control group. Study outcomes will be assessed over a 4-year period via both youth- and parent-report surveys and official records of police/court contact (e.g., arrests).
Detailed description
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) community-based mentoring (CBM) program for prevention of crime and delinquency/conduct problems, including risk and protective factors for these outcomes. Participants will be recruited from 16 BBBSA affiliates, which are located in different regions of the U.S. and were invited to serve as sites for the study using a random selection process. The study sample will consist of approximately 2,500 youth ages 10-16 whose parents seek services from one of the participating BBBSA affiliates during the study enrollment period and for whom consent/assent to participate in the research is obtained. Enrolled youth will be randomly assigned to participate in the CBM program (treatment group) or to a control group (no BBBSA programming during the youth's 4-year period of study participation). Youth will be assigned in a 3:1 ratio to the treatment and control groups. Youth and parents will complete survey measures both at study enrollment, prior to notification of assignment to control or treatment group, and 18 months later. Official records of police/court contact (e.g., arrests), with separate parent/guardian consent as provided at study enrollment, will be obtained both for the period preceding each youth's enrollment in the study and for a 4-year period following enrollment. The study has 4 specific aims: 1. To determine the effects of participation in the Big Brothers Big Sisters CBM program on youth offending as measured by police/court records, i.e., person offense, property offense, drug law violation, public order offense, or status offense. 2. To determine the effects of participation in the BBBS CBM program on the likelihood of youths' involvement in delinquent behavior/conduct problems as assessed by youth and parent reports. 3. To determine the effects of BBBS CBM program participation on the likelihood of youths' involvement in substance use as assessed by self-reports of alcohol use to point of drunkenness, tobacco, or illicit drug use. 4. To determine the effects of BBBS CBM program participation on both risk and protective factors for delinquent/criminal behavior, such as aggression, depressive symptoms, association with deviant peers, self-control, and school connectedness, as assessed by youth and/or parent reports, and to explore the role of these effects in mediating effects of program participation on offending, delinquent behavior, and substance use.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALBig Brothers Big Sisters Community-Based Mentoring Program
One-to-one mentoring provided by an adult volunteer with training and ongoing monitoring and support from program staff.
Sponsors
University of Illinois at Chicago
Laura and John Arnold Foundation
Herrera Consulting Group, LLC
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
SINGLE (Investigator)
Masking description
The research team will collect the 18-month follow-up surveys from participating youth and parents; masking of study condition will not be feasible for data collection staff, but primary study analyses will be conducted by the investigators with study condition masked. Juvenile justice authorities providing arrest record information will be masked to study arm of participants as will all those on the research team who are involved in coding this information.
Intervention model description
Enrolled participants will be assigned randomly to participate in the Big Brothers Big Sisters Community-Based Mentoring Program (treatment group) or to a wait-list control group that is not eligible to participate in the program for a period of 4 years.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
10 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* youth is 10 years of age or older * youth is likely to be eligible for the Big Brothers Big Sisters Community-Based Mentoring program as determined by initial assessment of program staff
Exclusion criteria
* youth has a severe learning, cognitive or other intellectual disability as reported by the parent * parent does not both speak and read either English or Spanish * youth does not have a sibling who is already a study participant * youth has been matched with a Big Brother/Sister through one of the affiliate's programs in the past * youth has a sibling currently receiving services from the affiliate for whom services were initiated (i.e., inquiry was made) prior to start of the study * youth belongs to a group that the affiliate is excluding from study participation based on previous agreement with the research team * youth is designated as an exception case by affiliate staff (each affiliate will have the opportunity to exclude up to 4% of study-eligible youth from the research prior to consent and random assignment for any reason deemed appropriate (e.g., perceived high need of the youth))
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Substance use | 18 months | 0/1 indicator based on youth report of alcohol use to point of drunkenness, tobacco, or illicit drug use |
| Arrest | 4 years | 0/1 indicator based on official police/court/juvenile office records of any of the following types of offenses-person offense, property offense, drug law violation, public order offense, or status offense |
| Delinquency | 18 months | 0/1 indicator based on youth and parent report using 13 items from the Add Health Study (Bearman et al., 1997) |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Family relationships | 18 months | Parent-report General Functioning scale of the Family Assessment Device (Epstein et al., 1983) |
| Perceived social support from family members | 18 months | Youth-report Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988): Family Members subscale |
| Truancy | 18 months | 3-item youth-report measure (2 items from Herrera et al., 2013) |
| Association with deviant peers | 18 months | A single measure computed as the average of scores on continuous youth-report measure (Elliott et al., 1996) and one-item (0/1) parent-report indicator from Youth Risk Index (Herrera et al., 2013) after each score has been standardized to mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1. |
| School suspensions | 18 months | One-item (0/1) parent-report indicator from Youth Risk Index (Herrera et al., 2013) |
| Depressive symptoms | 18 months | Depressive Symptoms Pediatric Self-Report - Short Form from the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) (Irwin et al., 2010). Lower scores indicate a better outcome |
| Impulsivity | 18 months | A single measure computed as the average of scores on continuous youth- and parent-report scales (Hay \& Meldrum, 2010) after each score has been standardized to mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1. |
| Conventional values | 18 months | Belief in the Moral Order scale of the Communities That Care Youth Survey (Arthur et al., 2002) |
| Aggressive behavior | 18 months | A single measure computed as the average of scores on youth-report Aggression Scale (Orpinas \& Frankowski, 2001) and parent-report Parent's Checklist from the Fast Track Project: https://fasttrackproject.org/techrept/p/pcl/ after each score has been standardized to mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1. |
| Academic success | 18 months | 4-item measure of grades in core subjects (Herrera et al., 2013) |
| Positive parenting | 18 months | Parent-report Positive Parenting subscale from the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (Essau et al., 2006) |
| Parent involvement | 18 months | Parent-report Involvement subscale from the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (Essau et al., 2006) |
| Perceived social support from special person | 18 months | Youth-report Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988): Significant Others subscale |
| School engagement | 18 months | Youth-report Behavioral Engagement subscale of the Engagement versus Disaffection with Learning Scale (Skinner et al., 2009) |
| Goal-setting and pursuit | 18 months | Parent-report Goal Orientation scale from Child Trends: https://www.childtrends.org/research/research-by-topic/positive-indicators-project/goal-orientation/ |
| Involvement in out-of-school-time activities | 18 months | Parent-report (Herrera et al., 2007) |
| Volunteering in the community | 18 months | Youth-report single-item (Herrera et al., 2013) |
| Life satisfaction | 18 months | Youth-report single-item measure from WHO's 2005-06 Health Behaviors in School Age Children Survey: http://filer.uib.no/psyfa/HEMIL-senteret/HBSC/2006\_Mandatory\_Questionnaire.pdf |
| Self-esteem | 18 months | Youth-report Global Self-Esteem subscale of brief version of the Self-Esteem Questionnaire (DuBois et al., 1996; Silverthorn et al., 2017) |
| Happiness | 18 months | Youth-report Positive Affect Pediatric Self-Report - Short Form from the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) (Forrest et al., 2017) |
| Grit | 18 months | Youth-report Grit Scale for Children (Duckworth \& Quinn, 2009) |
| Social competence | 18 months | Social Competencies Scale of the Youth Outcome Measures Online Toolbox (Muris, 2001) |
| Special interest development | 18 months | Youth-report (adapted from DuBois \& Keller, 2017) |
| Hopeful future expectations | 18 months | Youth-report abbreviated version of the Hopeful Future Expectations Scale (Bowers et al., 2012) |
| Career exploration | 18 months | Youth-report 2 items (adapted from Herrera et al., 2011) |
| College exploration | 18 months | Youth-report 1 item (adapted from Herrera et al., 2011) |
| Self-advocacy | 18 months | Youth-report (Jarjoura et al., 2017) |
| Perceived social support from peers | 18 months | Youth-report Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988): Peers subscale |
| Coping efficacy | 18 months | Youth-report 1 item adapted from Coping Efficacy Scale (Sandler et al., 2000) |
| Parental monitoring and supervision | 18 months | Parent-report Poor Monitoring/Supervision subscale from the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (Essau et al., 2006) |
| Parental consistent discipline | 18 months | Parent-report Inconsistent Discipline subscale from the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (Essau et al., 2006) |
Countries
United States
Contacts
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORDavid L DuBois, PhD
University of Illinois at Chicago
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORCarla Herrera, PhD
Herrera Consulting Group, LLC
Outcome results
None listed