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A Profile of the Evaluation of Juvenile Mentoring Program
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Program Description
| Overview | The goals of the federal Juvenile Mentoring Program (JUMP) initiative are to reduce juvenile delinquency and gang participation, improve academic performance, and reduce school dropout rates through the provision of one-on-one mentoring for youth at risk of delinquency, gang involvement, educational failure, or dropping out of school. In addition, individual JUMP programs must accomplish one or more of the following objectives: (1) provide general guidance to at-risk youth; (2) promote personal and social responsibility among at-risk youth; (3) increase participation of at-risk youth in, and enhance their ability to benefit from, elementary and secondary education; (4) discourage use of illegal drugs and firearms and involvement in violence and other delinquent activity by at-risk youth; and (5) encourage at-risk youth's participation in service and community activity. |
| Start Date | 1995 |
| Scope | national |
| Type | mentoring |
| Location | urban, suburban, and rural |
| Setting | public schools and community-based organizations |
| Participants | elementary, middle school, and high school students |
| Number of Sites/Grantees | 164 grant projects since 1995 in 41 states, Washington DC, and the Virgin Islands: 41 in 1995, 52 in 1997, 69 in 2001, 12 additional in later 2001, 27 in 2002 |
| Number Served | approximately 13,000 youth (as of June 2001) |
| Components | Three-year grants are awarded to local educational agencies (LEAs), or public or private nonprofit organizations that have a written memorandum of understanding with an LEA, to support implementation and expansion of collaborative mentoring projects. |
| Funding Level | $5.8 million (FY2001) |
| Funding Sources | U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention |
Evaluation
| Overview | The national JUMP evaluation is assessing the extent to which participation in a mentoring relationship changes youth behaviors likely to impact the long term JUMP goals of reducing juvenile delinquency and gang participation, improving academic performance, and reducing drop-out rates. The national evaluation consists of a process/implementation evaluation and an outcomes evaluation. The process/implementation evaluation focuses on documenting JUMP project implementation and on gathering descriptive information about youth, mentors, matches, and mentoring project models. The outcomes evaluation examines changes in youth behavior and attitudes that may be attributable to their participation in a mentoring relationship. Also included is a local evaluation component in which individual grantees are encouraged, but not required, to conduct evaluations to inform their own program improvement efforts. OJJDP developed the JUMP Self-Evaluation Workbook to guide mentoring projects through the process of creating a project logic model, designing an evaluation based on that model, interpreting data, and using evaluation results. To assist local sites in gathering information, evaluators developed a Data Elements and Definitions Manual and an automated JUMP Management Information System (developed in 1999) to allow the grantees to enter pertinent information about their program, youth, mentors, and matches into a database useful to the national evaluators and local program management and evaluation efforts. |
| Evaluator | Information Technology International and Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (subcontractor) |
| Evaluations Profiled | JUMP 1998 Report to Congress Juvenile Mentoring Program - A Progress Review (OJJDP Bulletin, 1999) |
| Evaluations Planned | N/A |
| Report Availability | Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (1998). Juvenile Mentoring Program, 1998 report to Congress. Washington, DC: Author. [Available at: ojjdp.ncjrs.org/jump/eval.html] |
Contacts
| Evaluation | Laurence C. Novotney Information Technology International 10000 Falls Road, Suite 214 Potomac, MD 20854 Tel: 301-765-0060 Fax: 301-756-0080 Email: lnovotney@itiincorporated.com |
| Program | Eric Peterson Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention U.S. Department of Justice 810 Seventh Street, NW Washington, DC 20531 Tel: 202-616-3644 Fax: 202-353-9096 Email: eric@ojp.usdoj.gov |
| Profile Updated | December 6, 2001 |
Evaluation: JUMP 1998 Report to Congress
Evaluation Description
| Evaluation Purpose | To document JUMP project implementation and provide descriptive information about youth, mentors, matches, and mentoring project models. |
| Evaluation Design | Non-experimental: The evaluation reports data collected from quarterly status reports and data submitted by grantees to the evaluators. Included in the report is information about grantees that were funded in FY95 and were in their third year of operations (Cohort I) and grantees that were funded in FY97 and were in their start-up year of operations (Cohort II). |
| Data Collection Methods | Secondary Source/Data Review: Each grantee was asked to complete a profile that included information about the mentoring programs, including program location, number and characteristics of youth served, number and characteristics of adult mentors, procedures for screening and training mentors, policies for parental permission and participation, funding sources, staffing levels, and policies, procedures, and preferences for matching youth with mentors. Grantees submitted data quarterly about youth and mentors matches, and any changes in program model. Grantees also submitted narrative reports, detailing their progress in implementing projects, and recruiting youth and volunteers. Finally, grantees reported program achievements and areas in which technical assistance was required. Surveys/Questionnaires: Youth and mentors completed surveys in which they were asked about their perceptions of the mentoring relationship. |
| Data Collection Timeframe | Data for this report were collected from October 1997 to December 1997. |
Findings:
| The report documents successes and barriers to implementation of mentoring projects and highlights some anecdotal evidence for the ability of mentoring to influences youth's behavior and attitudes. |
Formative/Process Findings
| Activity Implementation | Twenty-three percent of JUMP projects operate on a nine-month school year schedule and provide mentoring support only between September and June, 40% operate on a 12-month basis, and 37% provide services primarily during the school year with some supplemental activities conducted during the summer break. JUMP project activities vary. In 84% of the mentor/mentee partnerships, the mentor and mentee pair selects and implements their activities, 49% of the projects also included structured social/recreational activities, 27% provided structured educational/vocational activities, and 16% offered community service activities. Many JUMP projects supplement their core mentoring activities with additional services for mentees and families. These include parent support groups, self-help groups, in-agency referrals, referrals to other community organizations, case management, and advocacy. |
| Parent/Community Involvement |
Each project involves parents in a different way. |
| Program Context/Infrastructure | Most JUMP Projects cite delinquency prevention and improved school performance as two of their primary project goals. Most projects have a variety of other intended goals for their mentoring relationships, including increased school attendance, violence prevention, prevention of gang involvement, career development, goal planning, anger management, prevention of alcohol, tobacco and other drug use, pregnancy prevention, and development of independent living skills. Community collaboration is a key feature of JUMP Projects and such coordination frequently involves mental health centers, substance abuse treatment programs, recreation centers, and/or medical service providers. |
| Recruitment/Participation | “Typical” participant (based on 3,080 youth in the two cohorts): There are slightly more girls being served by the JUMP Projects (51.3%) than boys (48.7%). The typical JUMP youth is 12-14 years old with a range from 5 to 18 years old. The average age for girls in the program is 13 years, while for boys it is 12.7 years. JUMP projects serve children of many racial and ethnic backgrounds; a substantial proportion of the enrolled youth are African American. A majority of youth being served through JUMP projects face multiple risk: 57.3% come from a single parent household, 25% live with their biological father. Other risk factors cited by JUMP grantees include: school problems, social/family problems, delinquency, alcohol, tobacco and other drug use, and pregnancy. “Typical” mentor (based on 2,658 mentors in the two cohorts): Although grantees attempt to diversify their mentor pool, about 52% of mentors are white. The median mentor age is 35 years. JUMP project mentors for the most part are highly educated, with 90% having at least some college experience and 56% having college or graduate degrees. The volunteer mentors involved in JUMP projects constitute a diverse group. While 13.7% of the JUMP mentors were full-time students, 79.4% were in the work force, and 4.4% had retired from it. Of the 83.8% of those that work or are retired, the majority are (or were) in managerial (41.2%) or technical/sales (22.9%) positions, 4.9% are from law enforcement or justice agencies, and 2.5% are associated with the military. Grantees report that 31.6% of mentors have mentoring experience and 40.7% are parents. At the time of the report, 88% of the mentors had been offered some type of training. “Typical” participant-mentor match (based on 2,652 matches): There is an average of 2.7 months from the time of enrollment to the date a match is made, although based on the way information is recorded, this number may be distorted. Gender is a strong determining factor in matches: male mentors are matched with boys 96.8% of the time and female mentors are matched with girls 86.4% of the time. There appears to be a strong relationship between mentor and mentee race and ethnicity, although since white mentors outnumber white youth, many white mentors are paired with non-white youth. Match duration data are still being examined, but initial data show that the median length for terminated matches was approximately 6.5 months, with the termination dates often corresponding to the end of the school year. |
| Satisfaction | When asked about their satisfaction with the relationship, 70% of youth indicated that they liked their mentor “a lot” and 68% indicated that they get along well with their mentor “a lot.” When asked about their satisfaction with the relationship, 76% of mentors indicated that they liked their mentee “a lot” and 62% indicated that they get along well with their mentee “a lot.” |
| Staffing/Training | JUMP grantees approach mentoring training in different ways, typically requiring mentors to participate in orientation training sessions, prior to being matched with a youth. In addition to formal training, grantee staff carefully monitor and supervise the activities of the mentors through regular in-person or phone contact. JUMP staff have encountered some unanticipated barriers that required creative solutions. These barriers included unrealistic project goals, inadequate staff and volunteer resources, lengthy and cumbersome screening procedures, insufficient community support, and lack of adequate parental involvement. |
Summative/Outcome Findings
| Academic |
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| Family |
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| Prevention |
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| Youth Development |
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