Children's poor social-emotional functioning has been an increasing concern prior to and amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Childhood and adolescence are critical stages of life where they acquire key cognitive and social-emotional skills that shape their future mental health. When a student's social-emotional health suffers, so do their relationships,…

Purpose: Homeless children are more likely to have social skills deficits relative to same aged peers and may benefit from a social skills intervention. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess the Let's Be Social application with the addition of behavioral skills training (BST) to teach social skills to children who were homeless.…

Findings from the first round of evaluation of an afterschool youth development program are presented. This program, the 4H Afterschool Activity Program, incorporated a specific curriculum of aggression reduction, the BrainPower program, into its ongoing activities, which cover a wide range from homework assistance to arts and crafts. The…

One difficulty of evaluating after-school programs is that providers often lack resources necessary to employ rigorous evaluation designs. One strategy is to investigate the relationship between attendance and outcomes while covarying for important potentially confounding variables. The current study investigates the influence of after-school…

As part of its "Youth-at-Risk" initiative, the national Cooperative Extension System assisted communities across the nation in setting up school-age child care (SACC) programs that provide after-school care to at-risk students. Evaluation of 31 SACC programs in California revealed increased prosocial behavior, decreased problem behavior,…

The Junior Police program utilized non-academic youth interests as its foundation. The project filled the need for a youth organization, a youth clearinghouse, and more aid to delinquent and predelinquent youth to redirect them into ways of thinking and acting beneficial both to themselves and to the community. The objectives of the program were…

Concerns about the quality of a before- and after-school program on an overseas military installation arose due to low staff morale, caregivers' lack of training and experience, and child behavior problems. This practicum project devised and implemented a 10-week training program to increase staff knowledge of developmentally appropriate practices…