Blueprints Programs

Successful Program Implementation: Lessons from Blueprints

This 12-page bulletin from OJJDP presents findings from a process evaluation of Blueprints Programs, identifying critical components of implementation. Components include:

• Readiness of the site
• Organizational capacity through administrative support
• Building staff support
• Training and technical assistance
• Understanding the importance of implementation fidelity.

This Bulletin is derived from a 180 page online report, Blueprints for Violence Prevention, that describes the Blueprints initiative, presents lessons learned about program implementation, and provides recommendations for those designing, implementing and funding violence prevention programs.

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Profiles on the Blueprints Programs from the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV) at the University of Colorado. Blueprints identified ten violence prevention programs that met a high scientific standard of program effectiveness. CSPV’s purpose was to identify truly outstanding programs and to describe them in a series of "blueprints."

• Strong research design
• Evidence of significant prevention or deterrent effects
• Multiple site replication
• Sustained effects

Ten model programs met the selection criteria. Another category of programs met some of the criteria and were designated as promising programs.

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Bullying Prevention, one of the Center for the Prevention of Violence Blueprints series, is an effective approach to a very old phenomenon. "Boys will be boys" and "Girls don’t do that sort of thing" are two of the common myths encountered in confronting bullying. Suicides by youth who have been mercilessly bullied by their peers have been reported not only in the United States but in England, Scotland, and Ireland, Japan, Germany, Australia, Canada, and the Scandinavian countries.

Bullying was first addressed in the Scandinavian countries. In late 1982 a newspaper in Norway reported that three 10-14 year old boys from the northern part of Norway had committed suicide, in all probability a consequence of severe bullying by peers. The bullying prevention program described in this blueprint was developed by Olweus as a consequence of this event. It was refined, and evaluated in Norway, and has been replicated in several other countries, including the United States.

Bullying is characterized by the following three criteria:

• it is aggressive behavior or intentional "harmdoing;"
• it is carried out repeatedly and over time; and
• it occurs within an inter-personal relationship characterized by an imbalance of power.

How much Bullying is there?

In a large-scale study in 1998 of more than 6,000 middle school students from grades 4 through 6 in South Carolina, 23 percent reported that they had been bullied by other students "several times" or more frequently during the past three months. Approximately 20 percent reported that they had bullied other students with the same frequency.

Gender Differences

• Boys are much more likely to bully others than are girls.
• A relatively large percentage of girls report that they are bullied mainly by boys.
• Girls are less apt to use physical means of bullying. They use other forms of harassment such as slandering, spreading rumors, intentionally excluding others from the group, and manipulating friendship relations (i.e., depriving a girl of her "best friend.").

Age Trends

• Younger and weaker students are more often exposed to bullying.
• Although most incidents occur among students in the same grade, a good share of bullying is also carried out by older students towards younger ones.

Where Bullying Occurs

• Most bullying occurs on the playground or in the classroom.
• It can also occur in hallways, the gym, locker rooms, and the bathroom.
• Students are bullied on their way to and from school, but at a lower rate than at school.

The program has been shown to result in:

• a substantial reduction in boys’ and girls' reports of bullying and victimization
• a significant reduction in students’ reports of general antisocial behavior such as vandalism, fighting, theft, and truancy, and
• significant improvements in the "social climate" of the class, as reflected in students’ reports of improved order and discipline, more positive social relationships, and a more positive attitude toward schoolwork and school.

Other Bullying resources:

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Training for Community Families - After completing pre-service training and placement of the youth, MTFC parents attend a weekly group meeting run by a program case manager where ongoing supervision is provided. Supervision and support is also given to MTFC parents during daily telephone calls to check on youth progress and problems.

Services to the Youth’s Family: Family therapy is provided for the youth’s biological or adoptive family, with the ultimate goal or returning the youth back to the home. Parents are taught to use the structured system that is being used in the MTFC home. Home visits are closely supervised. Parents are encourage to have requent contact with the MTFC case manager to follow their child’s progress in the program.

Coordination and Community Liaison: Frequent contact is maintained between the MTFC case manager and the youth’s parole/probation officer, teachers, work supervisors, and other involved adults.

MTFC is a relatively non-restrictive community-based placement that can be used in lieu of residential or group care or that can be used to youth transitioning back to the community from such settings. It is less expensive than placement in group, residential care, or institutional settings.

Program Outcomes:

 Evaluations of MTFC have demonstrated that program youth compared to control group youth:

• spent 60% fewer days incarcerated at 12 month follow-up
• had significantly fewer subsequent arrests
• ran away from their programs, on average, three times less often
• had significantly less hard drug use in the follow-up period
• quicker community placement from more restrictive settings (e.g., hospital, detention).

Program Costs: The cost per youth is $2,691 per month; the average length of stay is seven months.

For more details see Blueprints History and Description of MTFC at the CSPV Blueprints Program site

Other Treatment Foster Care sites on the internet:

United Methodist Family Services of Virginia Treatment Foster Care

OSLC Treatment Foster Care OSLC (Oregon Social Learning Center) developed the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care Program. This information page includes a review of the randomized clinical trials which showed "statistically significant evidence of the effectiveness of the program in reducing criminal and delinquent behaviors in serious and chronic adolescent offenders."

Treatment Foster Care on Line - Another source of information about Treatment Foster Care at the Oregon Social Learning Center

Foster Families Wanted - An overview of the Intensive Family Treatment (ITF) program at KidsPeace.

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Multisystemic Therapy 

Multisystemic therapy (MST) is a family and community based treatment system devised to address and treat the factors within a juvenile’s family, peer and school networks which encourage that individual to commit offensive acts. MST relies on decades of research to address the know determinants of serious antisocial behavior in youths. Compared to usual juvenile services, MST results in significantly reduced rates of incarceration and rearrest among violent and chronic juvenile offenders.

                                                                    Scott W. Henggeler, Ph.D.

Multisystemic Therapy (MST) is one of the ten model programs chosen as Blueprints for Violence Prevention by the Center for Violence Prevention in Boulder, Colo. It addresses the multiple determinants of serious antisocial behavior in juvenile offenders. MST views individuals as being nested within a complex network of interconnected systems that encompass individual, family, and extrafamilial (peer, school, neighborhood) factors.

MST targets chronic, violent, or substance abusing male or female juvenile offenders, ages 12 to 17, at high risk of out-of-home placement, and the offenders’ families.

Evaluations of MST have demonstrated, for serious juvenile offenders:

• reductions of 25-70% in long-term rates of rearrest
• reductions of 47-64% in out-of-home placements
• extensive improvements in family functioning, and
• decreased mental health problems for serious juvenile offenders

In its recent Annual Report to Congress, the Coalition for Juvenile Justice cited Youth Villages of Memphis, Tenn. and Wraparound Milwaukee as "programs that help keep the public safe and provide children with assistance they desperately need." Mental health services at Youth Villages are based upon the multisystemic therapy model. 

Youth Villages is also cited in the recent American Youth Policy Forum  report by Richard Mendel, Less Hype, More Help: Reducing Juvenile Crime – What Works and What Doesn’t as the best example in the United States of an organization which delivers "the most effective services possible at the lowest price to limit the time a young person must spend in expensive out-of-home placements."

For more detailed information about Multisystemic Therapy, click on the links below.

MST - This site has the most complete, detailed information on multisystemic therapy on the net. Includes information for professionals, both brief and detailed descriptions, a section showing which states have licensed MST programs, . The Treatment Model section is very thorough.

Blueprints for Violence Prevention - Multisystemic Therapy profiled both in an overview and in a history and description section on the Center for Violence Prevention web site.

Visit Youth Villages and learn more about their MST program

A description of MST at the Escambia County, Florida Drug Court

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The PATHS Program

The PATHS Curriculum is taught three times per week for a minimum of 20-30 minutes per day. The curriculum has been shown to improve protective factors and reduce behavioral risk factors. Evaluations have demonstrated significant improvements for program youth as compared to control youth in the following areas:

• Improved self control
• Improved understanding and recognition of emotions
• Increased ability to tolerate frustration
• Use of more effective conflict-resolution strategies
• Improved thinking and planning skills
• Decreased anxiety/depressive symptoms (teacher report of special needs students)
• Decreased conduct problems (teacher report of special needs students
• Decreased symptoms of sadness and depression (child report - special needs)
• Decreased report of conduct problems, including aggression (child report).

Over a three-year period the program costs would range from $25/student/year to $45/student/year.

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A youth development program designed to serve disadvantaged adolescents by providing education, service, and development activities, as well as financial incentives, over a four year period, from ninth grade through high school graduation. The program targets adolescents from families receiving public assistance. QOP was developed and implemented by the Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America.

QOP strives to compensate for deficits found in poverty areas by:

• compensating for both the perceived and real lack of opportunities characteristic of disadvantaged neighborhoods
• providing interactions and involvement with persons who hold prosocial values and beliefs
• enhancing the skill levels (academic and functions) to equip participants for success
• reinforcing positive achievements and actions.

Each QOP participant is eligible to receive 750 hours of activities each year, divided equally among education, development activities, and service activities.

Factors contributing to QOP’s success include:

• Small groups of 20-25
• A community-based, case-management approach
• A program that starts early before many young people are in deep trouble
• An approach with multiple dimensions
• Financial incentives
• Program administrators who go the extra mile
• Multi-year funding, provided in advance

When compared to a control group QOP members were:

• more likely to be high school graduates
• more like to go on to post-secondary schools
• less likely to be high school dropouts
• more likely to have received an honor or an award in the past year
• less likely to become teen parents
• less likely to be arrested.

Costs:

• Per participant for four years, $10,600
• $2650 per participant per year.