A Randomized Trial of a Mentoring Program for High Risk Children

高危儿童辅导计划的随机试验

• 批准号: 8110753
• 负责人: John MARK EDDY
• 金额: $ 36.96万
• 依托单位: OREGON SOCIAL LEARNING CENTER, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-09-01 至 2011-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8110753
• 关键词: Accounting; Address; Adult; Advocate; Age; Alcohol or Other Drugs use; Americas; Area; Attention; Behavior; Behavioral; Boston; Caregivers; Characteristics; Child; Cities; Clinical Trials Design; Communities; Conduct Disorder; Costs and Benefits; Country; Drops; Education; Effectiveness; Emotional; Employee; Enrollment; Ethnic Origin; Failure; Family; Female; Friends; Funding; Funding Agency; Gender; Goals; Housing; Imprisonment; Indium; Individual; Intervention; Intervention Trial; Knowledge; Learning; Left; Literature; Longitudinal Studies; Mental Depression; Mental Health Services; Mentors; Minority; Oregon; Outcome; Outcome Study; Parents; Participant; Personal Satisfaction; Phase; Policies; Prevention; Prevention strategy; Preventive Intervention; Problem behavior; Process; Public Policy; Randomized; Randomized Controlled Trials; Records; Recruitment Activity; Research; Research Personnel; Resources; Risk; Risk Factors; Running; San Francisco; Schools; Screening procedure; Sex Behavior; Social Interaction; Societies; Student Dropouts; Substance abuse problem; Supervision; Teenagers; Time; Training; United States Dept. of Health and Human Services; Work; Youth; base; cost; cost effectiveness; design; ethnic minority population; experience; girls; high risk; high school; inner city; interest; kindergarten; peer; programs; randomized trial; satisfaction; skills; social; success; symposium; teacher; third grade

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Mentoring is widely viewed as an effective preventive intervention for a variety of youth problems and consequences, including conduct disorder and delinquency, academic failure and school drop out, substance use and abuse, and early sexual behavior and teen parenthood. In recent years, there has been strong support for mentoring programs from policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels. While there have been a variety of outcome studies on mentoring, and mentoring appears to have at least small, positive effects on youth in the short run, little is known about the long term influence of programs on the "high risk" children assumed to need mentoring the most, and almost nothing is known about how characteristics and qualities of the mentoring relationship are related to youth outcomes. We propose to conduct a longitudinal randomized controlled preventive intervention trial designed to assess the impacts of an established, privately funded, long term, intensive youth mentoring program called Friends of the Children (FOTC). FOTC partners with inner city public schools to identify and enroll kindergarten-age children thought to be at high risk for conduct disorder, academic failure, and teen parenthood due to serious levels and/or combinations of individual and family risk factors. FOTC mentors, called "Friends", are paid, full time employees who are rigorously trained and supervised. Friends work with not more than eight children at a time. Through FOTC, children are exposed to a variety of skill building and recreational experiences and assisted in accessing resources in a variety of areas, including academic and physical and mental health services. Participants for the study (N = 256; 80% minority, 50% girls) will be recruited through existing programs located within impoverished, inner city areas of Boston; San Francisco; Seattle; and Portland, Oregon. Children will be randomly assigned to either FOTC or a referral control condition. Children, their primary caregivers, and Friends will be assessed prior to program initiation in kindergarten, and during each subsequent year through the end of third grade. On an annual basis, primary teachers will be assessed; direct observations of Friend-child social interaction will be conducted; and school and FOTC program records will be collected. At each assessment, information will be collected on child behavioral, emotional, and academic adjustment, as well as on the quality and characteristics of child-peer, child-caregiver relations, child-Friend, and child-other adult (i.e., natural mentor) relationships. Analyses will examine child outcomes overtime; the impact of Friend-child relationship quality on program satisfaction, engagement, and persistence as well as on child outcomes; and differential effectiveness based on ethnicity, child gender, and baseline risk status. The findings from this study will have important implications for mentoring practice and policy.

描述（由申请人提供）：指导被广泛视为针对各种青年问题和后果的有效预防性干预，包括行为障碍和犯罪，学术失败和学校辍学，吸毒和滥用，以及早期的性行为以及早期的性行为和青少年育儿。近年来，在当地，州和联邦一级的决策者的指导计划方面得到了大力支持。尽管对指导进行了各种结果研究，而指导似乎至少对年轻人至少具有很小的积极影响，但对于计划对“高风险”儿童的长期影响，人们对假定需要指导的“高风险”的长期影响知之甚少，几乎没有什么知之甚少，关于指导关系的特征和素质如何与青少年相关。我们建议进行一项纵向随机对照预防性干预试验，旨在评估既定，私人资助，长期，密集的青年指导计划的影响，称为儿童之友（FOTC）。 FOTC与内城立公立学校合作，识别和注册幼儿园时代的儿童，由于严重的水平和/或个人和家庭风险因素的认真水平和/或组合，被认为处于行为障碍，学术失败和青少年父母身份的高风险。 FOTC导师，称为“朋友”，被付费，受过严格培训和监督的全职员工。朋友一次与不超过八个孩子一起工作。通过FOTC，儿童接触各种技能建设和娱乐体验，并协助在包括学术和身心健康服务在内的各个领域获得资源。该研究的参与者（n = 256; 80％的少数民族，50％的女孩）将通过位于波士顿内城贫困城市地区的现有计划招募；旧金山；西雅图；和俄勒冈州波特兰。儿童将被随机分配到FOTC或转介控制条件。在幼儿园的计划启动之前，在随后的一年到三年级结束之前，将对儿童，主要照顾者和朋友进行评估。每年将评估小学教师；将直接观察亲子社会互动；将收集学校和FOTC计划记录。在每次评估中，都将收集有关儿童行为，情感和学术调整以及儿童培育者，儿童保育关系，儿童朋友和其他成人（即自然导师）关系的质量和特征的信息。分析将检查儿童的成果加班；朋友与孩子关系质量对计划满意度，参与度和持久性以及儿童成果的影响；以及基于种族，儿童性别和基线风险状况的差异效果。这项研究的发现将对指导实践和政策具有重要意义。