Youth mentoring can be an effective way of supporting troubled youth, helping them sustain positive mental health, cope with stress, and lead successful lives through adolescence and into adulthood. This book is a comprehensive guide to youth mentoring programmes, illustrating how, if managed well, they can increase the social support available to…

Identifying the voluntary activities, programs, and services that children and families use during students' out-of-school time as primary supports, this self-study guide provides a framework for developing primary support programs that allow school-aged children and adolescents to develop physical, cognitive, social, and emotional skills. The…

In 2006, more than 6 million individuals were victimized by violent crimes. Although violence is below levels of the early 1990s, it remains high. The extent of violence and its impact highlight a critical need to develop and implement effective programs to reduce violence and victimization. Communities have initiated a wide range of such…

This implementation guide is designed for community-based organizations interested in developing programs similar to Plain Talk, a neighborhood-based initiative aimed at helping adults, parents, and community leaders develop the skills and tools needed to communicate effectively with youth about reducing adolescent sexual risk taking. The guide is…

To debunk the myth that evaluation is a process better left to people with a PhD, this guide describes how organizations and coalitions can develop and utilize an evaluation strategy to make underage drinking prevention programs successful and effective. This booklet first describes the purpose of evaluation as well as the myths and facts about…

Underage drinking prevention has two goals: prevent harm to the individual drinker and prevent harm to society. Modern prevention programs should be measured not by their intentions, but by their consequences: reducing the number of criminal events, reducing the amount of harm to individuals, and reducing the harm to society. This guide discusses…

The aims of the Youth and Environment Training Project were to: increase youth workers' awareness and understanding of conservation and environmental issues and their relevance to young people; create links between environmental education and youth work practice; develop strategies for implementing conservation and environmental activities within…

This planning guide is designed to help communities answer important questions about programs to address youth violence, including finding out the types of programs that are effective and learning how to implement them. The guide is divided into four sections. Section 1, "Key Facts about Youth Violence," presents key facts about youth violence…

Purpose: To report on findings from the evaluation of two innovative community-based prevention projects in the UK targeted at children disaffected from school, one involving football the other horticulture. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative inquiry focusing on three areas: "theories of change" underpinning the projects; referral…

This workbook is designed to help communities and program administrators assess the success of their Title V delinquency prevention programs, but it may serve as an evaluation tool for other prevention efforts as well. It provides information and resource aids on program planning, conducting evaluations, tracking programs, describing activities,…

This pamphlet suggests what to evaluate in a school-business partnership, how to evaluate it, and how to determine whether a partnership has made a difference. The section called "Why Evaluate?" lists six questions to which evaluation frequently yields the answers. The next section explains the purpose of four steps in preparing to evaluate…

This guide advocates an alliance among diverse groups for the purpose of decreasing the incidence of adolescent pregnancy and improving the outcome of pregnancies that do occur. It provides useful information for communities interested in developing pregnancy prevention activities. Statistics about adolescent pregnancies are given and the…

This guide for literacy tutors and educators provides basic information about people labeled as having an intellectual disability, along with practical teaching strategies and tips on designing inclusive literacy programs. It also raises questions to challenge assumptions and encourage program re-examination. The first four short chapters discuss…

This 1990-91 program evaluation reports on the special education instructional programs of the Des Moines, Iowa, public schools which serve approximately 3,600 students daily and over 5,000 students per year with special education services as prescribed in their Individualized Education Plans. The three primary sources of program funding are: (1)…

Methodologies for evaluating/documenting partnership programs are analyzed and options for evaluating/documenting OERI's Educational Partnerships Program (EPP) are proposed. The EPP supports alliances between public schools and/or higher education and the private sector to encourage excellence in education. This paper reflects…