Pre-Vocational Guidance Program at St. Mark's Community Center A Final Evaluation

• NCJ Number: 80715
• Author(s): L Marye
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 104 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: Louisiana Cmssn on Law Enforcement and Administration of Criminal Justice; US Dept of Justice; New Orleans Mayor's Criminal Justice Coordinating Council
• Corporate Author: New Orleans Mayor's Criminal Justice Coordinating Council
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Findings are presented from an evaluation of a prevocational guidance program for juveniles in New Orleans, La.

Abstract

New Orleans' St. Mark's Community Center received a grant in 1978 for a 3-year prevocational guidance program designed to teach youths aged 12 to 16 about the employment process. Instructors taught prevocational concepts and placement specialists found the children temporary or permanent jobs. Over the 39-month evaluation period, 430 students participated in the program, 246 of whom had successfully completed the program by March 1981. More than half of the participants were referred by criminal justice, school, or social work agency, and 83 percent of the current participants' cumulative records documented performance or behavioral problems in other schools. A control group of 7th and 8th grade students, selected from an area school, was compared with the prevocational student group. Results of the study indicate that 72 percent of the participants achieved over a 100 percent improvement in vocational information tests, and only 5 percent showed less than a 10 percent improvement. The project met its placement goal by finding jobs for 55 percent of participants under age 16 and 53 percent of those aged 16 and over. Although comparison group findings suggest the possibility that juvenile justice contact would have been higher for participants without program intervention, the age differences between the experimental and control groups make conclusions tentative. The data suggest that the program is dealing with a student population more delinquent than the average; thus, if reduction of delinquency remains a primary goal of the project, it should be reduced to a more realistic level. Cost information is appended, along with data from the followup survey and a statement of the learning objectives of the program. Tabular data are provided, and 13 references are included. (Author summary modified)