Life options and community service: Teen Outreach program.

The effectiveness of the year-long Teen Outreach program which included mentoring from a caring and supportive facilitator skill building and build up of self-worth through a work experience and peer support and developing tangible coping skills was supported.

Abstract

In the US an evaluation study of the Teen Outreach program covered the period between 1985 and 1989 and compared data on 495 students who experienced the program with data on 490 students who did not. The researchers used random sampling to create only 1 control group but the numbers were too small (6) to detect statistical significance thereby limiting their ability to do a multivariate analysis with data on the control group. Teen Outreach students consistently had lower pregnancy rates than the comparison students (e.g. 1984-1985 3.75% vs. 10%; 1986-1987 3.9% vs. 5.75%; 1988-1989 >3% vs. <7%; p < .05 for 1984-1985 and 1986-1987 and p < .01 for 1988-1989). Further they had lower rates of suspension from school in every school year except 1985-1986. The lower rates were significant in all school years following 1985-1986 (p < .01) regardless of grade prior rates of suspension and failing courses. In addition Teen Outreach students were significantly more likely to have lower rates of course failures than comparison students in all but 2 school years (1985-1986 and 1986-1987). They had consistently lower dropout rates than comparison students even when the researchers controlled for grade and pregnancy (significant for all school years except 1984-1985). These findings supported the effectiveness of the year-long program which included mentoring from a caring and supportive facilitator skill building and build up of self-worth through a work experience and peer support. The curriculum equally emphasized imparting knowledge on how to prevent pregnancy and developing tangible coping skills.