Relationships Matter: The Role Transition Specialists Play in Youth’s Reentry From the Juvenile Justice System

Increasing engagement to school, employment, and community are strong predictors of reducing recidivism for youth involved in the juvenile justice system. This study examined what occurs at reentry upon leaving a youth correctional setting. This study comprised of qualitative semi-structured interviews of transition specialists (TSs; n = 7) and young offenders ( n = 8) who participated in a 4-year reentry project in the Pacific Northwest. A total of 21 (13 TS and eight youth) interviews were thematically coded. Findings from this study included the important role of the TS in supporting a youth’s school, family, and community reentry. Key themes are described around the services to support employment, school engagement, and independent living during a youth’s reentry into a school setting.

Parent-Adolescent Communication as a Protective Factor Against Adolescent Alcohol and Tobacco Use: Reported Narratives From Youth From Latinx Farmworker Families

Due to high stressors and inequities, youth from Latinx migrant farmworker (LMFW) families may experience an elevated risk of early drinking and smoking. Parent-adolescent communication can protect against early initiation, but few researchers have explored this parenting practice in LMFW families. This qualitative study used youth-reported narratives to examine messages LMFW parents convey when discussing drinking and smoking, if these messages varied by age, youths’ feelings toward these discussions, and if these discussions promoted resilience against drinking and smoking among youth. Twenty-four LMFW youth (67% boys, Mage = 13.88, 79% born in the United States) were recruited from a summer Migrant Education Program in Indiana. Using thematic analysis, five themes were identified from youth interviews: (1) mostly older youth used substances, but nearly all youth stated that parent’s expressed disapproval toward underage drinking and smoking; (2) parent-adolescent discussions left youth feeling positive and confident; (3) parents used consejos to communicate about alcohol and tobacco; (4) parents were lenient toward drinking and smoking in older male teens; and (5) some parents did not offer reasons for why youth should avoid drinking and smoking or rules pertaining to these substances. Our findings have implications for research and interventions aimed at fostering parent-adolescent communication in LMFW families about alcohol and tobacco use.

Engaging Expectant and Parenting Adolescents: Lessons from the Massachusetts Pregnant and Parenting Teen Initiative

Introduction Programs supporting adolescent parents have been shown to increase socio-economic opportunities and promote healthy child development for young families, but retaining young parents is challenging. The Massachusetts Pregnant and Parenting Teen Initiative (MPPTI) offers case management and linkages to community and clinical services to young families. We examine engagement strategies identified by MPPTI participants and staff members in relation to participant retention by program site to identify potential strategies for increasing program engagement. Methods We employed a mixed-methods approach incorporating quantitative data on program participant characteristics and program retention by site with qualitative data from staff and participant interviews and focus groups. Results Key program engagement strategies identified by both MPPTI staff and youth participants were social-emotional supports, staffing model, and concrete supports. We found significant differences in program retention by site; the two sites with the highest levels of program retention offered all engagement strategies identified. Discussion Quantitative data on program retention coupled with qualitative data from staff and youth interviews suggests that in our program, there may be an association between the engagement strategies identified and levels of program retention.

Disability “In-Justice”: The Benefits and Challenges of “Yarning” With Young People Undergoing Diagnostic Assessment for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in a Youth Detention Center

Undertaking research with young people presents an array of methodological challenges. We report the findings from a qualitative study that took place alongside a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) prevalence study among detainees in Australia. Of 38 participants, 27 were Aboriginal youth. Interviews were conducted using “social yarning” and “research topic yarning,” an Indigenous research method which allows for data collection in an exploratory, culturally safe way. A complex interplay emerged between social yarning and research topic yarning which provided a space to explore responsively with participants their experiences of FASD assessments. Flexibility, including language adaptation and visual descriptions about assessments, was utilized to assist participants recall and retell their experiences. There were, however, challenges in gathering data on the assessment experiences of some participants. We describe how employing a “yarning” method for collecting data could benefit children and young people undergoing neurodevelopmental assessments in the future.

Testing the Retrospective Pretest with High School Youth in Out-of-School Time Programs

Practitioners and evaluators face several constraints in conducting rigorous evaluations to determine program effect. Researchers have offered the retrospective pretest/posttest design as a remedy to curb response-shift bias and better estimate program effects. This article presents an example of how After School Matters (ASM) tested the use of retrospective pretest/posttest design for evaluating out-of-school time (OST) programs for high school youth participants. Differences between traditional pretest and retrospective pretest scores were statistically significant, but effect sizes were negligible, indicating that both pretests yielded similar results. Interviews with youth led to 3 key findings that have implications for ASM using retrospective pretests with youth: response-shift bias was more prominent in youth interviews than in quantitative findings, youth recommended reordering the questions so that the retrospective pretest appears first to increase comprehension, and acquiescence bias emerged in the interviews. This study demonstrates that the retrospective pretest/posttest design can be an alternative to the traditional pretest/posttest design for OST at ASM. These findings are important for ASM and other youth-serving organizations, which often have limited capacity to survey youth multiple times within 1 program session.

An English Learner as a Cultural Broker for Youth Interviews

In the field of student voice, listening is a notion that is made more complex when related to student participation and agency. To listen to who English learners are requires a reframing of these students against the deficit discourse that is often used to describe their linguistic competencies. Discourse analysis is employed to examine the translanguaging experiences of an adolescent English learner who assisted the researcher in interviews with his peers. This empirical piece asks the question of what researchers can learn when employing the use of students as brokers when conducting interviews. Translanguaging is considered an element of cultural brokering in this piece and emphasized as a method for engaging student voice in educational research.

Examining Change in Adolescent Street Efficacy and Its Association With Violent Outcomes

Research suggests that street efficacy—the perceived ability to avoid dangerous situations in one’s neighborhood—is related to violent outcomes. We investigatedchangein street efficacy using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Measures of street efficacy and violence (offending, victimization, secondary exposure) were constructed at Waves 2 (1997–2000) and 3 (2000–2002) from youth interviews and parent reports. Results from hierarchical overdispersed Poisson models indicated that street efficacy was a malleable construct with stronger contemporaneous than enduring effects. Furthermore, rates of all three violent outcomes were reduced as individuals increased their levels of street efficacy. Findings support (a) teaching youths to safely navigate violent neighborhood situations and (b) continuously reinforcing youths’ perceived ability to navigate danger.

Job Seeking Information Behaviours of Urban, Métis Youth

Study of the information seeking behaviours of urban, Métis youth. Interviews address why Métis youth use certain tools, resources, and community programs to look for meaningful employment and how motivation affects the search process. Finds that talking to people is the most used method of information seeking.Étude des comportements de recherche d'information des jeunes métis en milieu urbain. Des entrevues permettent de clarifier pourquoi les jeunes métis utilisent des outils, des ressources et des programmes communautaires spécifiques pour chercher des emplois intéressants ainsi que les effets de la motivation sur le processus de recherche. Les conclusions démontrent que l'échange verbal est la méthode la plus utilisée.