Evaluation of the REBOUND Program

of the Youth Diversion Program
Kingston Ontario
Gary Bernfeld and Deborah Kyte
June 13, 1997

For further information, contact:
Gary A. Bernfeld, Ph.D.
Clinical and Consulting Psychologist
http://www.gary.bernfeld.com
1104 Acadia Drive
Kingston, ON K7M 8V7
(613) 634 7200

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Daren Dougall, Executive Director of the Youth Diversion Program, for his commitment to this evaluation, and to empirically based decision-making in general. His "hands-on" leadership and efforts at ensuring the integrity of this project, were critical to the successful completion of the evaluation.

Special thanks to Anne Woods and Chris Andersen, who as volunteer Research Assistants, facilitated in the data collection and analysis. Thanks are also due to other volunteers who assisted in the collection of the data used in the evaluation, and in particular, the efforts of Barb Surette.

Special recognition should be given to Deborah Kyte, who as a volunteer, designed and managed the project's information systems and thereby made an invaluable contribution to this project.

Finally, thanks to the Trillium Foundation, for their support of the evaluation of the REBOUND program.

Executive Summary

This report presents the findings of the evaluation of the REBOUND program of the Youth Diversion Program funded by the Trillium Foundation. Briefly, REBOUND is an educational program for youth that strives to develop social skills, self-esteem, life skills, cognitive skills and a sense of personal responsibility. The program consists of 10 weekly, evening sessions with the participants and 2 others with their parents. Each group of the REBOUND program serves up to 20 youths and relies on up to 14 trained volunteer coaches. Each weekly session has three main objectives: goal setting, communication and teamwork. The structured format for each session includes a lecture/discussion, role-playing, group activities and a guest speaker or video on the evening's topic. The REBOUND program has been operating in the Sarnia Lambton area since 1984.

The introduction of the REBOUND program in the Frontenac/Lennox and Addington area was designed to first replicate the Sarnia-Lambton program on a pilot basis, and later, after the evaluation was completed, to further develop the REBOUND program to meet local needs and pressures. This evaluation was designed to assist the Youth Diversion Program is deciding whether to adopt the REBOUND program on a permanent basis in the Kingston area.

The program evaluation design is multi-modal in scope. By "multi-modal" we mean that data are collected on multiple aspects of the REBOUND program (e.g. social competencies and behaviour problems), from multiple perspectives (parents and youths) with multiple modes of data collection (subjective ratings, qualitative comments and quantitative data) utilising multiple measures (subjective ratings, objective demographics and qualitative comments). The following represents an overview of this study's findings.

Youth Problems and Needs

The data indicate that the youths referred to the REBOUND program have multiple problems and are at risk of future involvement in the young offender system. For example, the youths averaged 5.4 known or suspected problems each-including parent-child conflict, emotional trauma and delinquency (found in most children), and school behaviour problems, emotional neglect and truancy, which were prevalent in half of the youths. In terms of risk assessment, 57% of the youths were at risk of violence and assaultive behaviour. In addition, more than a third were at risk of substance abuse, property damage and fire setting. With respect to criminal history, nearly half of the youths had recorded offences at intake to the REBOUND program. Each of these youths committed an average of 1.3 offences.

With respect to family demographics, only one-fifth of the youth came from families with two biological parents, while nearly one-third came from single parent families. In terms of socio-economic status, only 26% of the families were supported by two parents working and over one-third were on some sort of public assistance. The above data underscores the degree of familial and financial distress experienced by families participating in the REBOUND program.

Data from the Child Behavior Checklist indicated that about 93% of all the youths scored in the clinical range of deviancy (the worst 5% of all children tested in the normative samples). The parent ratings on the Social Skills Rating System indicated that nearly 85% of all children would have a better social skills score than those youth served by the REBOUND program (the figure for youth rated skills was somewhat lower, at 64%). Thus the antisocial behaviours that led the youths to come to the attention of parents and agencies that referred them to the program should be seen in the context of their multiple social and behavioural deficits.

Program Outcomes

With respect to changes in youth functioning, 3-month follow-up data showed that:

• the percentage of youth falling into the clinical range on the Child Behavior Checklist decreased from 93% to 70% overall, with specific reductions for the delinquency, anxious depressed, aggression, attention problems and withdrawn syndromes;
• parent-rated social skills, as measured by the Social Skills Rating System improved overall from a score of 84.3 to 91.6; particular improvements were noted in the youths' self-control and responsibility, with a trend suggesting an improvement in assertion;
• youth-rated social skills, using the same measure, showed a slight improvement overall from a score of 94.6 to 99.6; a slight improvement was noted in their self-control;
• youth-rated delinquent behaviour, measured by the Modified Self-Report Early Delinquency Instrument showed substantial improvements, reflecting a 63% reduction in overall delinquency as well as similar reductions for all specific types of delinquent behaviour: interpersonal/ aggressive, theft, drug/alcohol, and destructive/vandalism; and
• consumers (parents, youths and staff from other agencies) were more than satisfied with the REBOUND program.

These data lead us to be cautiously optimistic that the REBOUND program contributed to a reduction in delinquency and behaviour problems and an increase in social skills and competencies. While these data are encouraging, they should be interpreted with caution for the several reasons discussed in the report.

Recommendations

It is recommended that the Youth Diversion Program continues to operate the REBOUND program and that the program's capacity be expanded in the Kingston area, targeted at low risk young offenders. The goal of this recommendation would be to decrease the use of intensive and expensive services such as custodial placements for low risk youths and reserve these services for medium to high-risk offenders.

It is recommended that a more rigorous evaluation of this program be conducted in the future, to more comprehensively explore program's impact on recidivism and residential placements, utilising random assignment of youths to a comparison group, a longer follow-up period, and a cost analysis.