Project Activities
The curriculum to be adapted is WAGES: Working at Gaining Employability Skills – A Job-related Social Skills Curriculum for Adolescents. In its current form, the curriculum consists of four units: (1) locus of control, (2) teamwork, (3) communication, and (4) problem solving. Across these four units there are 33 lessons, each of which is about 50 minutes in duration. The curriculum content and structure will be adapted for use in a juvenile justice facility. Participants will be 360 incarcerated adolescents located in youth correctional facilities identified for intervention implementation. A formative evaluation process will be used to adapt the current curriculum for use in a juvenile justice setting, and a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design will be used to assess the feasibility and practicality of the adapted curriculum. Data analysis of outcome measures will include both categorical and continuous data. Categorical data analysis (e.g., employed/not employed) will be analyzed using contingency table analysis, such as chi-square tests and odds ratios, as well as logistic regression models. Continuous data analysis will be analyzed with analysis of variance and analysis of covariance techniques.
Structured Abstract
Setting
The juvenile justice facilities are located in Maryland, New Mexico, and Oregon.
Sample
Participants will be incarcerated adolescents located in youth correctional facilities identified for intervention implementation. Adolescents between the ages of 16 and 21 years old will be targeted because they are the population least likely to return to the local school district for traditional education services and may immediately enter the workforce upon transition out of the facility. A total of 360 adolescents will be recruited and participate in the baseline assessment. Because of high attrition rates within youth correctional facilities, the sample size is expected to decrease to about 144 participants for pre- and post-test assessments.
Intervention
The curriculum to be adapted is WAGES: Working at Gaining Employability Skills – A Job-related Social Skills Curriculum for Adolescents. In its current form, the curriculum consists of four units: (1) locus of control, (2) teamwork, (3) communication, and (4) problem solving. Across these four units there are 33 lessons, each of which is about 50 minutes in duration.
Research design and methods
A formative evaluation process will be used to adapt the current curriculum for use in a juvenile justice setting, and a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design will be used to assess the implementation of the adapted curriculum. The formative evaluation process includes adapting the curriculum for implementation in later years, learning how the intervention is being implemented within the correctional facility, and documenting the process for replication purposes. The quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design will assess the feasibility and practicality of implementation within the juvenile justice setting.
Control condition
The control condition will be comprised of inmates who are drawn from the educational programs within the facility prior to the year of intervention implementation. During the control condition, adolescents will receive standard practices from the correctional facility.
Key measures
Key measures for the formative evaluation process include (a) the design team feedback form, (b) fidelity of implementation, (c) social validity and feasibility measures, and (d) qualitative interviews. Key measures for the quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design include student outcome measures of the original WAGES curriculum, such as locus of control, teamwork, communication, and problem-solving. In addition, employment related social skills behavior will be measured using the Work Personality Profile. Community adjustment and recidivism will be assessed at follow-up and will be drawn from correction databases.
Data analytic strategy
Prior to outcome analyses, an attrition analysis on all available demographic variables (e.g., sex, disability type, ethnicity, type of crime) and types of facility services received (e.g., trauma/victim treatment, welding certification) will be conducted. Data analysis of outcome measures will include both categorical and continuous data. Categorical data analysis (e.g., employed/not employed) will be analyzed using contingency table analysis, such as chi-square tests and odds ratios, as well as logistic regression models. Continuous data analysis will be analyzed with analysis of variance and analysis of covariance techniques.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
Products: The products of this project include a fully developed employment-related social skills curriculum adapted for implementation in juvenile justice settings, published reports, and presentations.
Supplemental information
This curriculum was developed by the University of Oregon and designed for implementation in traditional high school settings and not specifically for youth served by the juvenile justice system. A curriculum design team will be created and target the following areas of the curriculum for adaptation: (1) Review of lessons, activities, and materials for adaptation within a secure setting (e.g., Are there any lesson activity materials that may be contraband? Are the group activities organized for safe implementation with no inappropriate touching?); (2) Align the curriculum vocabulary with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy language used during the adolescent's treatment sessions in the facility; (3) Identify missing employment-related social skills content pertinent to juvenile offenders and develop new lessons for implementation; and (4) Develop an implementation process for lessons to be completed in a typical term and in a briefer 3-week session (e.g., how should lessons be configured for a large block implementation?).
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
