NCJ Number
240135
Date Published
October 2009
Length
67 pages
Annotation
This report presents recommendations and lessons learned regarding how to best implement street-outreach programs, whose key element is the involvement of outreach workers in engaging marginalized and at-risk youth in their communities.
Abstract
Outreach workers, who are often life-long members of their communities and may have past experience in gangs or street organizations, seek out and interact with youth who are marginalized and at-risk for gang involvement or other types of delinquency. The outreach workers form mentoring relationships with their clients, link them to needed services and institutions, and advocate on their behalf with local authorities. One recommendation in this report is that outreach workers be selected on the basis of their connection with the targeted youth. A second recommendation is that outreach programs have clear and achievable goals that involve activities tailored to meet those goals. A third recommendation is that outreach programs remain true to their design and intention in the course of being implemented and sustained. A fourth recommendation pertains to the importance of collaborating with others and building relationships throughout the community with a number of groups, individuals, and agencies who can provide relevant services for clients. Another recommendation is that outreach programs be flexible in tailoring their approach to the characteristics and needs of individual youth. Also, the majority of street outreach programs consider productive partnerships with local police departments to be essential to their work. The report provides a checklist of questions that must be addressed in the course of planning and implementing a street outreach program. Appended literature review, summary descriptions of programs, and a list of the outreach programs surveyed