We report the results of an evaluation study of a diversion program, operated by the Miami-Dade County Juvenile Assessment Center in Florida. The Post-Arrest Diversion (PAD) program represents an innovative approach to treatment and intervention within the juvenile justice system that utilizes standardized psychosocial risks and needs assessment…

Evaluates the impact of personal construct and psychodynamic group work on the psychosocial functioning of offender adolescents. Group work was effective immediately after terminating treatment in increasing helpful maturational processes and in reducing the less helpful maturational processes. Group work was also effective to some extent in…

Elements of a treatment program, Comprehensive Vocationally Oriented Psychotherapy, are presented in terms of youth contact efforts, job opportunities, community outreach, individualized teaching, program administration and job matching activities. An initial program evaluation, conducted on three levels of the boys' functioning (personality…

For several years, the Federal government of the United States has supported programs that employ and teach skills to disadvantaged workers, especially disadvantaged youth. By concentrating on serving youth, such programs have neglected disadvantaged adults, for whom such programs may often be more effective. This assertion is based on an…

This report evaluates year-long wilderness camping rehabilitation program for juvenile delinquents believed "emotionally problemed." The remote camps teach through an experience curriculum encompassing daily camping style tasks, with integration of experience via three-day home visits every six weeks followed by written reports by…

The Michigan Youth Service Personnel, the men at Wurtsmith Air Force Base, and the residents around Oscoda, Michigan, implemented and carried out an exemplary youth camping program dedicated to helping troubled boys achieve a far brighter future than would ordinarily be expected. The program was evaluated by Florida Technological University.…

Describes Project Choices, a residential treatment program for drug-abusing adjudicated adolescents that employs the adventure-based counseling model to instill change. Describes Project Choices goals as being the reduction of conduct-disordered behavior associated with delinquency and drug use. Presents program evaluation results which suggest…

This evaluation profiles the population and studies the recidivism rate for Florida's three community-based, residential group treatment (GT) programs for juvenile delinquents not requiring the more intensive security and isolation of the state's training schools. Other ERIC documents describe the smaller (serving 7-25 youths) positive peer…

The use of adventure based education is a new and relatively unresearched but apparently successful practice in the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents. Courses offered by schools, state social service systems, juvenile courts, youth service bureaus, and other agencies are generally patterned after the standard Outward Bound course and involve…

Some behavior disordered children drift from agency to agency, with little continuity or communication among services. The price paid is a high one, not only in dollars, but also in terms of negative personal, family, professional, and community consequences. A sense of interagency collaboration needs to be revitalized. (JW)

Evaluation of the impact on several self-perception, behavioral, and family functioning variables of an Outward Bound school program with a family training component for adolescent status offenders indicated that treatment group subjects had significantly higher scores on all variables compared to controls at four weeks, though many differences…

This paper describes a portion of the Kennedy Youth Center program concerned with motivating previously intractable sociopathic youths in the academic and industrial arts schools. Male delinquents considered uneducable in traditional education programs, have been advanced two years in the one year they spent as participants in the differential…

Empirical data show that there are more negative consequences for youth offenders committed to institutional rather than community-based programs. However, public policy, governed by political factors rather than knowledge of the relative effectiveness of alternative programs, favors punishment and retribution over rehabilitation goals.…

Compares the history and current status of deinstitutionalization efforts for the mentally ill, criminal offenders, and the aged. Suggests that ideologies for all three groups are similar, but that practices have diverged. Points out that ideologies frequently distort perceptions of practice. (Author/MJL)

Camping or other outdoor experience is seen as an alternative to incarceration for youth-at-risk, matching the excitement of the street-gang society or peer group, while simultaneously giving youth-at-risk a sense of the reason for teamwork, adherence to a group-respected value system, regard for skills and abilities of others, plus a…