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A Profile of the Evaluation of Generacion Diez

Program Description

Overview	Generacion Diez (G-10) is an after school program in Adams County, Pennsylvania, that aims to address major problems affecting the growing Latino migrant community in the area. Specifically, the program’s goals are to (a) reduce school failure and absences in migrant children, (b) improve children’s study and social skills and promote social-emotional competence, (c) provide migrant parents with instrumental and social support and improved access to social service resources, and (d) increase parent–teacher involvement and cooperation.
Start Date	October 1998
Scope	local
Type	after school
Location	rural
Setting	public school

Participants	elementary school students (Grades 1–6)
Number of Sites/Grantees	3 sites
Number Served	94 in 1998–1999
Components	Children are selected for the program based on referrals solicited from three major school districts within Adams County, as well as from the Office of Children and Youth and the Migrant Health Services agencies. To be selected, children from Latino migrant families (and a very small number of non-Latino youth) have to meet at least one of the following criteria: (a) poor/below grade-level academic performance, especially in reading and writing; (b) poor classroom conduct (e.g., poor self-control, socially withdrawn); or (c) low parent participation or involvement in school. A mixture of Latino and non-Latino individuals staff G-10. Each site has a bilingual program director and two head teachers, as well as volunteer staff. The number of volunteers varies by site, with one to three volunteers assisting children during homework time. Half of the head teachers and many of the volunteers are bilingual. When children arrive at G-10, they are separated into two groups based on grade. One group consists of first to third graders, and the other consists of fourth to sixth graders. The afternoon starts with a snack and homework period. When children complete their homework, and if time allows, they participate in group activities ranging from indoor games to outdoor play to field trips. These activities often include integration of academic concepts. After the group activity, children are taught a lesson from one of two curricula. The first, an academic achievement curriculum, is taught twice weekly for 30–45 minutes per session and focuses on age-appropriate instruction in traditional school subject areas (e.g., reading, spelling, and mathematics). The second curriculum, Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies (PATHS) is a comprehensive curriculum that promotes social and emotional competence in elementary-school-aged children. In addition to the after school programming, G-10 employs a parent home-education component designed to establish linkages between the Latino families, the schools, and other supporting agencies in the community. Trained home educators act as liaisons between Latino parents and teachers, explain the expectations of the school, communicate children’s educational needs at home, and apprise parents of the educational progress of their children. To the extent that parents can communicate in English, home educators help them learn how and when to communicate directly with a child’s teacher. The home educators also provide migrant families with assistance in attaining various social services and advise parents on more appropriate attitudes regarding child rearing. Lastly, the home educators work in close collaboration with parents of children with especially problematic behaviors in devising strategies to reinforce good behavior in the home. After an initial assessment visit is made to each family and assistance is provided in linking families to necessary community resources, subsequent visits are provided at least once per month and on an as-needed basis.
Funding Level	not available
Funding Source	the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program

Evaluation

Overview	The evaluation examined (a) how certain ecological factors (e.g., family functioning) influence migrant Latino children’s academic outcomes following participation in G-10, (b) whether program attendance was associated with changes in children’s social development, and (c) whether program attendance and contact with G-10 home visitors was associated with changes in parent involvement in the children’s education.
Evaluators	Nathaniel R. Riggs and Mark T. Greenberg, Prevention Research Center, the Pennsylvania State University
Evaluations Profiled	Moderators in the Academic Development of Migrant Latino Children Attending After-School Programs (Year 1) After-School Program Attendance and the Social Development of Rural Children of Latino Immigrant Families (Year 1) The Generacion Diez After-School Program and Latino Parent Involvement With Schools (Year 2)
Evaluations Planned	none
Report Availability	Riggs, N. R., & Greenberg, M. T. (2004). Moderators in the academic development of migrant Latino children attending after-school programs. Applied Developmental Psychology, 25, 349–367. Riggs, N. R. (in press). After-school program attendance and the social development of rural children of Latino immigrant families. Journal of Community Psychology. Riggs, N. R., & Medina, C. (in press). The Generacion Diez after-school program and Latino parent involvement with schools. Journal of Primary Prevention, 26.

Contacts

Evaluation	Nathaniel R. Riggs, Ph.D. University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine Institute for Prevention Research 1000 S. Fremont Ave., Unit #8 Alhambra, CA 91803 Tel: 626-457-6687 Email: nriggs@usc.edu
Program	Nathaniel R. Riggs, Ph.D. University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine Institute for Prevention Research 1000 S. Fremont Ave., Unit #8 Alhambra, CA 91803 Tel: 626-457-6687 Email: nriggs@usc.edu
Profile Updated	January 17, 2006

Evaluation 3: The Generacion Diez After-School Program and Latino Parent Involvement With Schools (Year 2)

Evaluation Description

Evaluation Purpose	To examine associations between participation in G-10 and changes in parent involvement with schools.
Evaluation Design	Quasi-Experimental: Pretest and posttest data were collected on all measures. Changes in parent involvement were examined by comparing youth with different program attendance levels and different degrees of contacts with G-10 home visitors, controlling for child’s age, gender, family functioning, parent acculturation, social competence, and reading achievement. Since parent involvement data could only be collected once per program year, data were collected on a longitudinal sample of the 60 youth participants in the 1st year of program implementation who remained for a 2nd year. The G-10 staff reported that the two main reasons for attrition were children “graduating” from the program as they became too old or re-emigrating to Latin America. The children who dropped out of G-10 were not statistically different from the children who remained in the program on any measure included in the current analysis, with the exception of age (p < .01): Children who dropped out of the program were on average almost 2 years older (1 year 10 months) than those who remained. However, this was to be expected, as the main reason for attrition was that children were too old to continue in the program.
Data Collection Methods	Secondary Source/Data Review: G-10 teachers reported year-end program attendance totals, based on daily attendance counts. The number of direct contacts between parents and G-10 home educators was documented by the home educators. Test/Assessments: Each of the following measures was collected in the fall of both years and in the spring of year 2. To measure parent-school involvement, parents completed a modified version of the Parent-Teacher Involvement Scale (PTI; Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 1991a), a 26-item measure developed to assess facets of parent and teacher involvement. Three subscales of the PTI were used. The first, a 4-item scale, assesses frequency of contact between parents and teachers (e.g., in the past year, “you stopped by your child’s school to talk to his/her teacher”). The second is a 9-item scale which assesses the frequency with which parents engage in various activities (e.g., reading to their children, taking them to the library, and volunteering at school). The third is a 13-item scale that measures quality of parent-school involvement (e.g., the degree to which parents feel welcome at their child’s school, enjoy meeting with the child’s teacher, etc.). To measure family functioning, parents completed the Family Assessment Measure-III (FAM-III; Skinner, Steinhauer, & Sitarenios, 2000), which measures family strengths and weaknesses. It contains three scales: general (50 items; e.g., “family duties are fairly shared”), self-rating (42 items; e.g., “my family expects too much of me”), and dyadic (42 items; e.g., “this person and I are not close to each other”). To measure parents’ acculturation, parents completed the Short Acculturation Scale for Hispanics- Adult Version (SASH; Marin, Sabogal, Marin, Otero-Sabogal, & Perez-Stable, 1987), a 12-item measure assessing the predominant language used in different contexts of a parent’s day (reading, speaking, thinking, and television/radio) and the predominant ethnicity of a parent’s social group (close friends and visitors). It is scored on a 5-point scale, with 1 indicating only Spanish, 3 indicating both Spanish and English equally, and 5 indicating only English. To measure children’s social skills and behavior problems, school-day teachers completed the Social Health Profile (SHP; Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 1991b). Children’s social skills were rated in the domains of social competence (e.g., friendly, controls temper, can calm down when excited) and behavior problems (e.g., yells at others, fights, takes others’ property). To measure academic achievement, youth completed the Wide Range Achievement Test-Revised (WRAT-R; Jastak & Wilkinson, 1984). It consists of three subtests: reading (42 items; i.e., recognizing and naming letters and words), spelling (40 items; i.e., writing symbols, name, and words), and arithmetic (40 items; i.e., solving oral problems and written computations). References: Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group. (1991a). Social Health Profile. Durham, NC: Author. Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group. (1991b). Parent-Teacher Involvement Questionnaire: Parent Version. Durham, NC: Author. Jastak, J., & Wilkinson, G. S. (1984). Wide Range Achievement Test-Revised (WRAT-R) (Rev. ed.). Wilmington, DE: Jastak Assessment Systems, USA. Marin, G., Sabogal, F., Marin, B. V., Otero-Sabogal, R., & Perez-Stable, E. J. (1987). Development of a short acculturation scale for Hispanics. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 9, 183-205. Skinner, H., Steinhauer, P., & Sitarenios, G. (2000). Family Assessment Measure (FAM) and process model of family functioning. Journal of Family Therapy, 22, 190-210.
Data Collection Timeframe	Data were collected in September/October 2001 and May 2003.

Findings:
Formative/Process Findings

Recruitment/Participation

Twenty-six of the longitudinal participants were male and 34 were female. Thirty-seven percent of the children were in first grade, 30% were in second grade, 15% were in third grade, 11% were in fourth grade, and 7% were in fifth grade.

Summative/Outcome Findings

Family

Parents who had children with greater attendance rates in the G-10 program increased their reports of quality and quantity of parent-teacher contact, as well as their engagement in their children’s school activities (p < .01 for all three measures).

Parents who had more direct contacts with home educators reported greater decreases in the quality and quantity of parent-teacher contacts over the 2-year period (p < .01 for both). No results were found for parent engagement in school activities.

A Profile of the Evaluation of Generacion Diez

Profile Information