EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

How do communities intervene with adolescents at psychosocial risk? A systematic review of positive development programs

Chloe García-Poole, Sonia Byrne and María José Rodrigo

Children and Youth Services Review, 2019, vol. 99, issue C, 194-209

Abstract: The community is an important context for adolescents at psychosocial risk due to its great potential to offer opportunities for positive development. The objective of this study is to review illustrative community group-based intervention programs that promote competences in this population following the positive development framework. A systematic literature search was carried out following the PRISMA guidelines to identify the characteristics of group-based programs (location, participants, aims, referral, enrollment, facilitator, method, and duration) and the quality level of their evaluation (emerging, promising, and best practice). The search included intervention programs published in peer-reviewed scientific journals in English and Spanish, from 1980 to 2017. Eight electronic databases and reference lists of relevant studies were consulted, and 25 programs targeting early, mid, and late adolescents were found to meet the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. Results reveal acceptable practices related to participant referral, facilitator training, and great variability in the types of activities offered, with overall positive findings in increasing adolescent personal and social competences and reducing problematic behaviors. However, information was lacking or was poorly reported on enrollment strategies, group composition, attrition rates, implementation measures, effect sizes and moderators of change, and therefore the quality of the evaluation designs could be improved in line with evidence-based standards. Recommendations are offered for researchers in the community program evaluation field, and policymakers, practitioners, and stakeholders can be made aware of the characteristics and effectiveness of these programs so that they can be offered to adolescents in need.

Keywords: Systematic review; Community group intervention; At-risk adolescents; Positive youth development; Evidence-based programs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740918309435
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:99:y:2019:i:c:p:194-209

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.01.038

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu (repec@elsevier.com).

 
Page updated 2024-12-28
Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:99:y:2019:i:c:p:194-209