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Teen Outreach

Ages 14-18

Rating: Level 2

Intervention

Teen Outreach (TO) is a preventive program that uses volunteer community service to reduce teen pregnancy, school failure, and school suspension rates among high school students. The program targets both males and females who enroll voluntarily into the program as a health curriculum elective course in response to a teacher’s or guidance counselor’s suggestion. TO has an explicit developmental concentration, helping teens understand and evaluate their future life options, such as those surrounding career and relationship choices. This emphasis attempts to further teens’ progress in the developmental task of establishing their competence and autonomy in a context that maintains their sense of their relationships to important adults.

The TO program consists of three interrelated elements: supervised community volunteer service, classroom-based discussions of service experiences, and classroom-based discussions and activities related to key social-developmental tasks of adolescence.

Students select volunteer activities under the supervision of trained staff and adult volunteers. These activities, which are intended to respond to the needs and capacities of both students and local communities, include work as aides in hospitals and nursing homes, participation in walkathons, peer tutoring, and a wide range of other work. TO sites are required to provide at least 20 hours a year of volunteer service for each participant. In addition to volunteer service, students participate in classroom discussions at least once a week during the school year, led by trained facilitators—often schoolteachers or guidance personnel.

All classroom discussions and activities are based on the Teen Outreach Curriculum, which is designed to engage students through structured discussions, group exercises, role plays, guest speakers, and informational presentations. Service learning discussions concentrate on helping students prepare for their service experiences, think about what they have experienced while volunteering, and listen to others share their experiences.

In developmentally oriented classroom discussions and activities, the facilitator leads small groups of students in activities and topics of particular interest to young people. Topics for classroom discussions and activities include understanding oneself and one’s values, life skills, dealing with family stress, human growth and development, and issues related to the social and emotional transitions from adolescence to adulthood.

Evaluation

This program was evaluated with a true experimental design study of 25 randomly assigned sites. In addition, students were randomly assigned to either the treatment program or a control condition (traditional health curriculum) at the student level (students were randomly selected to the treatment or control condition because of an excess of students interested in the program) or, less frequently, the classroom level (classrooms were randomly selected to offer TO in lieu of the regular health curriculum). The sample included 342 students who participated in the program and 353 control students, all in the 9th through 12th grades. Students sought to enter the program as part of their health curriculum, as an academic elective, and as an afterschool activity before being randomly assigned to the participant or control groups. Both participant and control groups were similar in age (15) and ethnicity (majority African-American), with both groups having more than 80 percent females. However, the control group demonstrated higher levels of prior teen pregnancy, course failure, and school suspension. Self-report questionnaires were used to provide demographic information and assess students’ problem behaviors. Students were assessed during the 1st several weeks of the school year and then again at program exit at the end of the school year. The evaluation measured teen pregnancy, school failure, and school suspension rates of the students in both participant and control groups.

Outcome

The evaluation found that program participants experienced significantly lower levels of teenage pregnancy, school failure, and school suspension rates, even after accounting for baseline levels of the behaviors and for sociodemographic characteristics of students. The risk of teen pregnancy in the participant group was 41 percent as large as the risk for the control group. The risk of school failure in the participant group was 42 percent as large as the risk for the control group. The risk of school suspension in the participant group was 39 percent as large as the risk for the control group.

Risk Factors

Individual

  • Early sexual involvement
  • Life stressors

School

  • Dropping out of school
  • Low academic achievement
  • Low academic aspirations
  • Negative attitude toward school/Low bonding/Low school attachment/Commitment to school
  • School suspensions
  • Truancy/Frequent absences

Community

  • Low community attachment

Protective Factors

Individual

  • Healthy / Conventional beliefs and clear standards
  • High expectations
  • Perception of social support from adults and peers
  • Positive expectations / Optimism for the future
  • Self-efficacy
  • Social competencies and problem-solving skills

School

  • Above average academic achievement / Reading and math skills
  • High expectations of students
  • Opportunities for prosocial school involvement
  • Presence and involvement of caring, supportive adults
  • Rewards for prosocial school involvement
  • Strong school motivation / Positive attitude toward school
  • Student bonding (attachment to teachers, belief, commitment)

Community

  • Clear social norms / Policies with sanctions for violations and rewards for compliance
  • High expectations
  • Presence and involvement of caring, supportive adults
  • Prosocial opportunities for participation / Availability of neighborhood resources
  • Rewards for prosocial community involvement

References

Allen, Joseph P., and Susan Philliber. 2001. “Who Benefits Most From a Broadly Targeted Prevention Program? Differential Efficacy Across Populations in the Teen Outreach Program.” Journal of Community Psychology 29:637–55.

Allen, Joseph P., Susan Philliber, Scott Herrling, and Gabriel P. Kuperminc. 1997. “Preventing Teen Pregnancy and Academic Failure: Experimental Evaluation of a Developmentally Based Approach.” Child Development 64(4):729–42.

Contact

Claire Wyneken
Wyman Center
600 Kiwanis Drive
Eureka, MO 63025
Phone: (636) 938-5245
Fax: (636) 938-5289
E-mail: clairew@wymancenter.org
Web site: http://www.wymancenter.org

Technical Assistance Provider

Claire Wyneken
Wyman Center
600 Kiwanis Drive
Eureka, MO 63025
Phone: (636) 938-5245
Fax: (636) 938-5289
E-mail: clairew@wymancenter.org
Web site: http://www.wymancenter.org