NCJ Number
171010
Date Published
1997
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This report presents quantitative performance measures for Oklahoma's VisionQuest program, which encompasses a variety of community-based, residential programs for juveniles.
Abstract
VisionQuest programs include boot camp, therapeutic foster homes, a specialized community home, a wilderness program, drug treatment, group homes, and independent living arrangements. The study population consisted of 62 juveniles who were discharged from the VisionQuest program with at least 6 months of lapsed time since discharge. The critical outcomes performance measures applied to residential programs included completion rate, court intake rate, and less restrictive post-placement rate. The completion rate is the proportion of juveniles discharged from each placement facility who, in the opinion of their assigned caseworker, successfully completed the placement program. Court intake rate is the total number of confirmed referrals for offenses 6 months prior to placement services compared with the number of confirmed referrals during placement and post-placement at 3 and 6 months post-discharge. For this report, pre-service and post-service (6 months) court intake rates were examined. Less restrictive post-placement rate is the proportion of juveniles successfully completing a placement program who are subsequently placed at a less restrictive level of care within 3 months of discharge. This measure is revisited for the period of 6 months post-discharge. For this report, the 6-month post-service proportion was examined. The report concludes that the performance measures for the VisionQuest program compare favorably with other programs that accept juveniles with similar indices for difficulty. 13 tables