Measuring Program Success
Any evaluation of program effectiveness depends on the criteria that are chosen to determine success. If connecting youth to community resources and services is the criterion for success of the SHIELD program, then it is clearly a success. Of the 43 randomly selected youth who were tracked during the first year of operation, 60 percent received services of some kind, 26 percent could not be contacted because they were no longer in the community (e.g., the family had relocated, or the youth had run away), and 14 percent were still in the community but did not receive services because of parental refusal (Kent and Wyrick, 1998). If delinquency prevention among targeted youth is the criterion for success, then judgments are more difficult to make. The use of multiple treatment modalities and providers across the community makes an impact evaluation of the SHIELD program challenging. Outcomes are largely dependent on the quality of the services and programs to which youth are referred. The formative evaluation included a qualitative assessment of participant satisfaction with the counseling provided through SHIELD, and the results were promising. The findings from the evaluation of the Westminster Youth Academy also reflect positively on the SHIELD program (Wyrick and Kent, 1998). However, results of these evaluations are short term and are limited to a portion of the youth who are engaged in the program. In the absence of impact evaluation data for each treatment modality in the community, assessment of the overall level of delinquency prevention that SHIELD has brought to Westminster is impossible. Even if such an evaluation were conducted, the potential for generalizing from the findings would be limited because of the unique combination of services available in the community. Nevertheless, the identification and referral activities stand as the central program elements of SHIELD, and these show great promise as a model for the mobilization of community resources to prevent delinquency.| Previous | Contents | Next |
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| Law Enforcement Referral of At-Risk Youth: The SHIELD Program |
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