The Effects of TF-CBT and Wraparound Services on Disadvantaged Youth: Experimental Evidence

Children’s Home and Aid (CHA) and Youth Advocate Programs (YAP) have teamed up to provide the new C2C intervention to Chicago youth. YAP will assign each youth an advocate who will interact weekly with the youth in one-on-one and family meetings, as well as recreational groups. The advocate will work with the youth for 12+ hours a week to engage them in pro-social activities and build up the natural supports in their lives. In addition, CHA will provide SPARCS (Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress), a group trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy. SPARCS is a specific form of therapy that is designed for youth who have been traumatized, and continue to live with high levels of stress. Youth will receive 12-16 sessions of SPARCS aimed at reducing trauma symptoms and improving behavior.

The program is intended for high-risk youth (ages 13-18), and therefore will specifically target youth who are actively gang-affiliated, on juvenile probation, have been found guilty of weapons offenses, are seriously disruptive in school through chronic truancy, serious misconduct or frequent suspensions, or have been direct victims of or witnesses to traumatic violence. Referrals will be received from Chicago Public Schools, the Cook County Juvenile Probation Department, and other agency and community partners that work with youth who are involved in the juvenile justice system and have disengaged from school.

Youth who are randomly selected from the eligible population of referrals and agree to participate in the intervention will receive 5 months of C2C programming. The program will be delivered in four sessions, each lasting five months and enrolling 110 youth at a time. The goal of the C2C intervention is to reduce criminal and violent behavior and improve academic achievement by helping youth stabilize and successfully participate in school, community, and family life.

2015-10-09

2017-11-30

• Criminal activity [Time Frame: 6 month intervals post randomization to at least 2 years post]
The number of arrests will be measured using individual-level administrative data on juvenile and adult arrests from the Chicago Police Department.
• School engagement [Time Frame: 6 month intervals post randomization to at least 2 years post]
Schooling outcomes will be measured using student-level administrative data from the Chicago Public Schools. Engagement will be assessed using data on attendance, CPS on-track indicator, grades, course-taking, disciplinary incidents, test scores, graduation, school switching, and enrollment in schools within juvenile justice facilities.

However, we need to wait until a youth becomes eligible for graduation as some youth start the program as young as 13. Therefore if we need to follow youth for longer than 2 years post randomization to observe graduation or other school engagement variables, we would do so.

• Employment [Time Frame: 6 month intervals post randomization to at least 2 years post]
Employment and wages will be measured using individual-level quarterly earnings records from Unemployment Insurance, provided by the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
However, we need to wait until a youth becomes eligible for employment as some youth start the program as young as 13. Therefore if we need to follow youth for longer than 2 years post randomization to observe possible employment, we would do so.

The interval time periods will be used to determine when most of the change is happening for all outcomes.

In addition to using Chicago Police Department data, we will also look at outcomes using Illinois State Police data as not all youth in our study have and will be arrested in the city limits.

We plan to investigate total arrests as well as arrests broken down by certain categories such as violent, property, drug, or "other". This other category might be further categorized if it makes up a majority of arrests. We will use techniques such as factor analysis to further sub-divide categories.

if available, we will obtain data from the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) to explore how the program impacted public benefit enrollment (such as SNAP, medicaid, etc).


If possible, we will work with the Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) to explore the impact of the program on enrollment in summer employment programs in Chicago.

Lastly, if given permission, we will explore the long-run impact of this program (5-10 years post). This would involve looking at some of our primary outcomes for a longer time horizon (adult employment, adult arrest outcomes) and exploring new outcomes such as enrollment in college through the National Student Clearinghouse.

Randomized Controlled Trial: For each program cohort of 110, the youth will be randomly selected from a list of at least 220 eligible youth. The Crime Lab will compare the treatment group outcomes to the control group outcomes, looking specifically at arrests, connection to school and/or employment, and academic performance. Given the structure of the referrals and background of our youth, we will stratify (or block) by referral source and neighborhood to improve our treatment effect estimates.

More detail on RCT:

The referral sources will provide the Crime Lab with a list of names, from which the Crime Lab will randomly select half to receive the program. The Crime Lab will share the list of selected youth with CHA and YAP, who will then contact and recruit the youth. This method ensures that no youth will be contacted with a potential offer of services that is then rescinded. There is a high need for these services, but because the program is intensive and expensive, CHA and YAP only have the capacity to provide the 5-month program to 110 youth at a time. This study design ensures a fair allocation of these limited services and does not restrict the control group from getting other services for which they would normally be eligible.

We will stratify based on referral source and neighborhood. Stratifying according to some variables will improve the precision of our estimates to the extent that the referral source and neighborhood of a youth helps explain variation in our treatment. This is possible given that the level of risk in engaging in violent behavior or disconnecting from school will differ by referral source and neighborhood environment.

Randomization done by computer

Eligible youth were randomized at the individual level and stratified by referral source and neighborhood.

No

880 youth

880 youth

440 treatment youth, 440 control youth at a minimum. Depending on take-up, more will likely be offered treatment.

Pre-analysis plan details