While research on program effectiveness offers ample evidence that afterschool programs can benefit young people in a variety of ways, this same body of research demonstrates that not all programs are equally effective (Granger, 2008). Some programs show positive results in many or all major outcome categories. Other programs are associated with…

This report is the product of a 2-year project during which the Committee on Community-Level Programs for Youth, a 15-member panel, evaluated and integrated the current science on adolescent health and development with research and findings regarding program design, implementation, and evaluation of community programs for youth. It highlights…

The Children and Adolescent Support and Self-Sufficiency (CAPSS) program serves pregnant and parenting adolescents eligible to attend an urban school district in the Midwest. It employs a Youth Development Framework promoting connections with caring adults. While pregnancy prevention has become a major initiative for schools, programming to help…

The mentoring of youth by adults has been identified as one of the more promising program approaches to promoting positive youth outcomes. This synthesis examines the role that mentoring plays in helping youth develop a broad array of strengths and capacities related to: (1) education and cognitive attainment; (2) health and safety; (3) social and…

This guide advocates an alliance among diverse groups for the purpose of decreasing the incidence of adolescent pregnancy and improving the outcome of pregnancies that do occur. It provides useful information for communities interested in developing pregnancy prevention activities. Statistics about adolescent pregnancies are given and the…

Effective participatory education programs are planned efforts designed to effect cognitive, social, and affective change. Although research does not yet permit unequivocal generalizations about effects, existing research is promising, especially when compared with research on effects of work experience per se. Positive effects include student,…

This paper reviews research studies conducted during 1970-1980 in the area of adolescent pregnancy. Research information is presented in a column format: column 1 provides the research findings, column 2 supplies the sources of findings, and column 3 provides interpretations of the findings. In addition, findings are organized around 11 separate…

This book provides an overview of the history, theoretical basis, research, development, evaluation, and current status of wilderness therapy programs for troubled adolescents. An introduction explores theories of adolescence and adolescent development, problems facing adolescents in contemporary society, limitations of traditional mental health…

Based on the view that programs with a strong academic component may reduce the substantial educational disparities for American students from disadvantaged backgrounds or in chronically underperforming schools and school districts, this synthesis of research on academic achievement programs describes how such programs may help children and…

As the amount of resources allocated to out-of-school (OST) programming and policymakers' demands for research-based results increase, there is increasing interest in rigorous research designs to examine OST program outcomes. This issue of "Out-of-School Time Evaluation Snapshots" reviews 27 quasi-experimental and experimental OST…