Intervention; Ages 6–12
Effectiveness
(Read the criteria for this rating)
Effective delinquency program
Description
Schools And Families Educating Children (SAFEChildren) is a family-focused preventive intervention designed to increase academic achievement and decrease risk for later drug abuse and associated problems such as aggression, school failure, and low social competence. Initially targeting first-grade children and their families living in inner-city Chicago neighborhoods, SAFEChildren has two components. The first component is a multiple-family group approach that focuses on parenting skills, family relationships, understanding and managing developmental and situational challenges, increasing parental support, skills and issues in engaging as a parent with the school, and managing issues such as neighborhood problems (e.g., violence). Families participate in 20 weekly sessions (2 to 2.5 hours each) led by a trained, professional family group leader. The second component is a reading tutoring program for the child. Each tutoring session involves segments on phonics, sound and word activities, and reading books. Tutoring is provided twice weekly (one 30-minute and one 20-minute session) over 20 weeks, using a modified version of the Wallach program. The program serves both genders and Black and Hispanic/Latino children.
Children who received the intervention improved in overall reading ability at a more rapid rate than did those who did not receive the intervention. Among families designated as high-risk, there was a significantly greater improvement in parental monitoring for those who received the SAFEChildren intervention than for those who did not receive the intervention. Among high-risk children (having high levels of problem behaviors at pretest), SAFEChildren participants showed a decrease in aggression, whereas those who did not receive the intervention had a slight increase in aggression.
Risk Factors
- Individual
- Antisocial/delinquent beliefs
- Conduct disorders (authority conflict/rebellious/stubborn/disruptive/antisocial)
- Early and persistent noncompliant behavior
- Early onset of aggression/violence
- General delinquency involvement
- High alcohol/drug use
- Hyperactivity/impulsivity
- Lack of guilt and empathy
- Low intelligence quotient
- Low perceived likelihood of being caught
- Mental health problems
- Poor refusal skills
- Victim of child maltreatment
- Victimization and exposure to violence
- Family
- Abusive parents
- Antisocial parents
- Broken home/changes in caretaker
- Child maltreatment (abuse or neglect)
- Family poverty/low family socioeconomic status
- Family violence (child maltreatment, partner violence, conflict)
- High parental stress/maternal depression
- Lived/living with a gang member
- Parent proviolent attitudes
- Parental use of physical punishment/harsh and/or erratic discipline practices
- Poor parental supervision (control, monitoring, and child management)
- Poor parent-child relations or communication
- Unhappy parents
- School
- Bullying
- Frequent school transitions
- Frequent truancy/absences/suspensions; expelled from school; dropping out of school
- Identified as learning disabled
- Low academic aspirations
- Low achievement in school
- Low school attachment/bonding/motivation/commitment to school
- Old for grade/repeated a grade
- Poor student-teacher relations
- Poorly defined rules and expectations for appropriate conduct
- Student failure in the first grade
- Unsafe schools
- Community
- Availability of firearms
- Community disorganization
- Economic deprivation/poverty/residence in a disadvantaged neighborhood
- Feeling unsafe in the neighborhood
- Low neighborhood attachment
- Moved to a new neighborhood
- Neighborhood youth in trouble
- Peer
- Association with antisocial/aggressive/delinquent peers; high peer delinquency
- Peer rejection
Endorsements
National Registry of Effective Programs and Practices: Effective program
National Gang Center: Effective program
National Dropout Prevention Center/Network, Clemson University: Effective program
SAMHSA’s Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies (2016): Effective program
Contact
Patrick H. Tolan Ph.D.
Director, Youth-Nex | The UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development
Professor, Curry School of Education and Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences
One Morton Drive, Room 300-12
Charlottesville, VA 22903
Phone: (434) 243-9551
E-mail: [email protected]
Web site: https://education.virginia.edu/patrick-h-tolan
References
Gorman-Smith, D., Tolan, P. H., Henry, D. B., Leventhal, A., Schoeny, M., Lutovsky, K., and Quintana, E. (2002). Predictors of participation in a family-focused preventive intervention for substance use. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 16(Suppl. 4), S55–S64.
Tolan, P., Gorman-Smith, D., and Henry, D. (2004). Supporting families in a high-risk setting: Proximal effects of the SAFEChildren preventive intervention. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 72, 855–869.