Utilizing Adventure Education to Rehabilitate Juvenile Delinquents

• NCJ Number: 75082
• Author(s): G L Golins
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 75 pages
• Contract Number(s): NIE 400-78-0023
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare
• Corporate Author: Eric Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools
• Sale Source: Eric Document Reproduction Service; National Educational Laboratory Publishers, Inc
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

The adventure-based education concept is described as implemented for the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents; programs and courses featuring the wilderness setting are emphasized.

Abstract

The use of adventure-based education is a new and relatively unresearched, but apparently successful, practice in the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents. Basically, adventure-based education is a process in which a willing learner is impelled at a calculated risk to himself and others within a primary peer group, most often in a wilderness setting, to master a conditional series of problems which enable the learner to lead a more autonomous life. Courses offered by schools, State social service agencies, juvenile courts, youth service bureaus, and other agencies are generally patterned after the standard Outward Bound course and involve the mastery of such outdoor pursuits as mountaineering, sailing, or river rafting. The gamelike atmosphere, the organization of the participants into primary peer groups, the use of the outdoors, the nature of the problems pose, and the style of instruction are five elements of adventure education which impel a juvenile delinquent to alter his/her destructive ways. Programs are usually designed as cost-effective diversions to institutionalization or as supplements to existing youth-serving agency programs. Both types of programs involve referral, orientation, the outdoor expedition itself, and followup. Many exemplary programs exist throughout the country. Adventure-based practitioners face several major issues, including program followup, course management and staffing, and evaluation. Appendixes include an outline for the development of an adventure program, a sample schedule, suggested teaching methodology, and a relevant article. Thirty-one footnotes and a bibliography of approximately 25 entries are included. (Author abstract modified).