| Recently, Canada enacted the new Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), with an emphasis on non-court and non-custodial measures for juvenile offenders. The development of effective programs for juvenile offenders is essential to support this new focus. Towards this goal, a process and outcome evaluation was conducted of three post-charge programs for juvenile offenders (related to violence prevention, anger management, and substance abuse, respectively). This research also aimed to develop a customized youth measure for these programs and assess the applicability of identity formation theory to programming for juvenile offenders. Two studies were conducted to meet these three goals. The first involved conducting questionnaires with program youth, parents and guardians, program counsellors, and case managers, as well as assessing youth recidivism. The second study involved a six-week follow-up questionnaire with program completers.; Adopting a utilization-focused approach, the evaluation involved an examination of four program components: program processes, program outcomes, the impact of processes on outcomes and program theory (based on the development of a program logic model). The examination of these program components provided important information about both strengths and weaknesses of the program. These findings are employed to make several recommendations regarding these programs. While the programs did not appear to impact youth recidivism, the programs serve an essential role in fulfilling the mandate of the YCJA by providing non-custodial options for juvenile offenders. As part of this research, a pre-post youth measure was developed to be used as a quality assurance tool in subsequent programs. This measure will allow program staff to continually improve the program.; The current research provides preliminary support for the application of identity formation theories to programs for juvenile offenders. Specifically, the creation of relationships between youth and staff led to youth imitation of and identification with staff (an identity formation mechanism). The potential applications of identity formation theory to programs for juvenile offenders are discussed. |
