Delinquency and Crime Prevention: Overview of Research Comparing Treatment Foster Care and Group Care

Background: Evidence of treatment foster care (TFC) and group care’s (GC) potential to prevent delinquency and crime has been developing. Objectives: We clarified the state of comparative knowledge with a historical overview. Then we explored the hypothesis that smaller, probably better resourced group homes with smaller staff/resident ratios have greater impacts than larger homes with a meta-analytic update. Methods: Research literatures were searched to 2015. Five systematic reviews were selected that included seven independent studies that compared delinquency or crime outcomes among youths ages 10–18. A similar search augmented by author and bibliographic searches identified six additional studies with an updated meta-analysis. Discrete effects were analyzed with sample-weighted preventive fractions (PF) and 95 % confidence intervals (CI). Results: Compared with GC, TFC was estimated to prevent nearly half of delinquent or criminal acts over 1–3 years (PF = 0.56, 95 % CI 0.50, 0.64). Two pooled study outcomes tentatively suggested that GC in homes with less than ten youths may prevent delinquency and crime better than TFC, p = 0.08. Study designs were non-equivalent or randomized trials that were typically too small to ensure controlled comparisons. Conclusions: These synthetic findings are best thought of as preliminary hypotheses. Confident knowledge will require their testing with large, perhaps multisite, controlled trials. Such a research agenda will undoubtedly be quite expensive, but it holds the promise of knowledge dividends that could prevention much suffering among youths, their families and society

Taking the youth perspective: Assessment of program characteristics that promote positive development in homeless and at-risk youth

This study extends research on contextual characteristics associated with positive outcomes within traditional youth settings to examine program characteristics, resources and positive development opportunities that exist within programs for homeless youth and youth at risk for homelessness. One hundred and thirty-three youth (42 boys and young men; 91 girls and young women) from six community agencies completed questionnaires created to assess youth ratings of program dimensions associated with positive development. Relationships were examined among dimension ratings, client characteristics and overall satisfaction. Regression analyses revealed significant main effects for participant age, appropriate structure, empowerment, and positive social norms, and two age by dimension interactions. Older youth who were more satisfied with agency programming produced higher ratings for agency structure, while for younger youth, satisfaction was positively associated with ratings for agency safety. Implications for service delivery and policy are discussed.Youth homelessness Homeless youth services Service delivery Positive youth development