Evaluation of Utah's Youth and Families with Promise Program

In 2005, JRSA began a six-year National Institute of Justice-funded project to evaluate the Youth and Families with Promise (YFP) program, a statewide mentoring program in Utah designed for at-risk youths ages 10-14. Youths are paired with mentors to engage in various skill-building activities, participate in 4-H activities, and also attend Family Night Out activities with their family members in order to strengthen family bonds.

The goals of the evaluation study are to determine:

• whether the program is achieving its desired outcomes,
• if the program is being implemented with a reasonable degree of fidelity,
• how easily others could adopt the program, and
• whether the program appears to be cost-effective.

In order to accomplish these objectives, we plan to collect pre-, post-, and follow-up data on youth who enter the YFP program, along with a matched comparison group of school students. Questionnaires completed by youths and parents will be utilized to measure the program objectives related to intra and interpersonal strength, affective strength, family involvement, and problematic behaviors. Official school records and Utah court records will also be reviewed to measure these objectives. Interviews with program site coordinators, mentors, and youths will be conducted to assess the fidelity of program implementation. Data from the program sites, Utah Board of Juvenile Justice, and the justice system will be used to assess the program cost relative to other juvenile programs in Utah and potential savings achieved by participation in the YFP program.

More information on the YFP program can be obtained from the Youth and Families with Promise web site.

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