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The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.

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Program Description

Overview Teen Outreach Program (TOP) is a school-based program involving young people ages 12–17 in volunteer service in their communities. The program connects the volunteer work to classroom-based, curriculum-guided group discussions on various issues important to young people. Designed to increase academic success and decrease teen pregnancy, TOP helps youth develop positive self-image, learn valuable life skills, and establish future goals.
Start Date 1978
Scope national
Type after school, weekend
Location urban, suburban, rural
Setting public school, community-based organization, religious institution, private facility, recreation center, other
Participants middle school and high school students
Number of Sites/Grantees 176 sites nationwide (2003)
Number Served 13,000 students (2003)
Components TOP encompasses three interrelated elements: (1) supervised community volunteer service, (2) classroom-based discussions of service activities, and (3) classroom-based discussions and activities related to key social-developmental tasks of adolescence.

Volunteer activities are selected by participants under supervision of trained staff and adult volunteers, sensitive to the needs and capacities of both participants and the local communities. Examples of volunteer activities include: working as aides in hospitals and nursing homes, participation in walkathons, peer tutoring, and various other activities. Sites were required to provide a minimum of 20 hours per year of volunteer experience to participants, with the median participant in the study performing 35 hours of service.

Classroom discussions are designed (via the Teen Outreach Curriculum) to provide structured discussions, group exercises, role-plays, guest speakers, and informational presentations. Discussions are geared toward either maximizing learning from students' volunteer experiences, or toward helping cope with important developmental tasks such as managing family relationships, new academic and employment challenges, handling close friendships and romantic relationships, etc. Facilitators are given wide latitude in directing discussion and specific material about sexuality actually comprises less than 15% of the written curriculum (some of which was often not used due to site leaders' discretion). Service learning discussions focused on issues such as dealing with a lack of self-confidence, social skills, assertiveness, and self-discipline (in order to help prepare for their service experiences). Participants are also encouraged to think about and discuss what they learned while volunteering, and hear others do the same. Classroom discussions are led by trained facilitators (youth professionals, teachers, or very rarely guidance counselors). Program staff often work in conjunction with various community organizations, faith groups, and businesses in order to provide the volunteer activities to participants.
Funding Level $100–$600 per participant per year
Funding Sources TOP currently has no national funding. Program sponsors find their own funding and often institutionalize the program for sustainability.


Evaluation

Overview The TOP program has been regularly evaluated for over 10 years. Throughout the early 1990s, researchers conducted numerous nonrandomly designed evaluations of TOP's impacts in reducing teen pregnancy and school failure. It was thought, however, that a true experimental evaluation would be more influential to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in order to investigate the potential for broad, developmentally focused interventions targeting the prevention of diverse problem behaviors. Thus, evaluators collected data with a randomly designed study carried out between 1991 and 1995. A subsequent evaluation focused on whether the program has differential impacts across different populations. Finally, Cornerstone Consulting Group, Inc. (CCG), the company that owns and operates the program, drafted a report reflecting on the lessons they learned during their efforts to expand and replicate their program on a national scale since 1995.
Evaluators Joseph P. Allen, University of Virginia

Susan Philliber and Scott Herrling, Philliber Research Associates

Gabriel P. Kuperminc, Yale University

Cornerstone Consulting Group, Inc.
Evaluations Profiled Preventing Teen Pregnancy and Academic Failure: Experimental Evaluation of a Developmentally Based Approach

Who Benefits Most From a Broadly Targeted Prevention Program? Differential Efficacy Across Populations in the Teen Outreach Program

The Replication Challenge: Lessons Learned From the National Replication Project for the Teen Outreach Program (TOP)
Evaluations Planned None at this time
Report Availability Allen, J. P., Philliber, S., Herrling, S., & Kuperminc, G. P. (1997). Preventing teen pregnancy and academic failure: Experimental evaluation of a developmentally based approach. Child Development, 64(4), 729–724.

Allen, J. P., & Philliber, S. (2001). Who benefits most from a broadly targeted prevention program? Differential efficacy across populations in the Teen Outreach Program. Journal of Community Psychology, 29(6), 637–655. Available at www.cornerstone.to/top/prevent.pdf (Acrobat file).

Cornerstone Consulting Group, Inc. (1999). The replication challenge: Lessons learned from the National Replication Project for the Teen Outreach Program (TOP). Houston, TX. Available at www.cornerstone.to/what/rep.pdf (Acrobat file).

Allen, J. P., Kuperminc, G., Philliber, S., & Herre, K. (1994). Programmatic prevention of adolescent problem behaviors: The role of autonomy, relatedness, and volunteer service in the Teen Outreach Program. American Journal of Community Psychology, 22, 617–638.

Allen, J. P., Philliber, S., & Hoggson, N. (1990). School-based prevention of teenage pregnancy and school dropout: Process evaluation of the national replication of the Teen Outreach Program. American Journal of Community Psychology, 8, 505–524.

Philliber, S., & Allen, J. P. (1992). Life options and community service: Teen Outreach Program. In B. C. Miller, J. J. Card, R. L. Paikoff, & J. L. Peterson (Eds.), Preventing adolescent pregnancy: Model programs and evaluations (pp. 139–155). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.


Contacts

Evaluation Joseph P. Allen, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology, Gilmer Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
Tel: 434-982-4727
Email: allen@virginia.edu
Program Sharon Lovick Edwards
Cornerstone Consulting Group
One Greenway Plaza, Suite 550
Houston, TX 77042
Tel: 713-627-2322
Email: sedwards@cornerstone.to
Profile Updated February 21, 2003

Evaluation 1: Preventing Teen Pregnancy and Academic Failure: Experimental Evaluation of a Developmentally Based Approach


Evaluation Description

Evaluation Purpose To answer the following questions: (1) Does the program impact teen pregnancy rates of participants? (2) Does the program have an impact on school failure and suspension rates? and (3) Do any such impacts vary according to student gender, parental education level, household composition, or racial/ethnic minority status?
Evaluation Design Experimental: TOP was evaluated at 25 different sites nationwide from 1991 to 1995. Sites randomly assigned students by selecting students individually from a waiting list (either out of a hat or choosing every other name on an alphabetized list) or less frequently by offering TOP to randomly selected classrooms in lieu of regular curricular offerings in Health or Social Studies. The total sample size included 342 TOP students and 353 control students. Attrition rates were 5.3% among TOP students and 8.4% among control students. No significant demographic differences were found between TOP and control groups, although the control group demonstrated significantly higher levels of prior course failure and teen pregnancy. Three sites were eliminated from the analysis due to evaluators' investigations into either groups' differential attrition rates or deviations between TOP and control groups on program entry characteristics. Program entry differences and demographic characteristics were also statistically controlled for during the subsequent data analysis.

Given that program and control groups differed somewhat at program entry, the evaluators broke down the remaining 22 sites into those where the control group exhibited more problematic behavior at program entry and those where the control group exhibited less problematic behavior than the TOP group at program entry. This was done to investigate whether any program effects were merely an artifact of the control group demonstrating, on average, more problem behavior prior to program entry. The evaluators conducted separate analyses breaking down the data in this way.

The evaluators also examined the data by (1) reanalyzing the data with the three previously dropped sites re-included, and (2) dropping sites where the control group were most different from the TOP group on reported problem behaviors. Neither scenario altered the findings reported below in any significant way.
Data Collection Methods Secondary Source/Data Review: Archival data from one nonrandom site, containing information regarding history of course failure and school suspension, were used to assess the validity of students' self-reports of these behaviors in the surveys/questionnaires.

Surveys/Questionnaires: Students complete surveys at the beginning and end of each program year. Surveys asked about demographic characteristics such as age, grade-level, race, household composition, and parents' education level. Surveys also asked whether students had ever either been pregnant or caused a pregnancy, failed any courses in the past year, or had been suspended in the past year.
Data Collection Timeframe Data were collected during the 1991–1995 school years.


Findings:
Formative/Process Findings

Costs/Revenues The program can be offered for a full academic year to a class of 18–25 students for approximately $500–$700 per student. If facilitator and site-level coordinator costs are provided as an in-kind contribution by schools and volunteer service organizations, this cost can be kept at approximately $100 per student.
Recruitment/Participation Eighty-six percent of TOP participants were female and 14% were male.

Over 67% of participants were black, while 17% were white, and another 13% were Hispanic.

Sixty-nine percent of participants were in either ninth or tenth grade.

The average age of TOP participants was approximately 16.

The average TOP participant's parent was a high school graduate.

A total of 45.6% of TOP participants came from two-parent households.


Summative/Outcome Findings

Academic Risk of school suspension in the TOP group was only 42% as large as the risk of suspension in the control group (p<.001).

Risk of course failure in the TOP group was only 39% as large as the risk of course failure in the control group (p<.001).

TOP's effects on course failure and risk of suspension did not differ depending on whether the control group exhibited more problem behavior than the treatment group prior to the evaluation.

The archival data on school suspension and course failure revealed that most students were accurate in their reporting of such behavior. There were no significant differences between TOP and control groups in the accuracy of this self-reporting. The evaluators report that the slight but statistically insignificant differences that did exist between groups in accuracy of reporting would not have resulted in a bias in favor of either group.

Students who worked more volunteer hours were at lower risk for course failure during the program. This interaction was statistically significant (p<.04).

No interaction effects of program participation with household composition, parental education levels, racial/ethnic minority status, student grade in school, or history of prior problem behaviors were found in predicting program outcomes.
Prevention The effects of the program in preventing teen pregnancies were highly significant for females (p<.001); a separate analysis of the program for males was not possible due to the small number of males and male reports of causing a teen pregnancy. No other interaction effects were found by household composition, racial/ethnic minority status, student grade in school, or history of prior problem behaviors, indicating that the program works in the same ways for these various populations.

For females, risk of teen pregnancy was only 41% as large for TOP participants as in the control group (p<.05).

Pregnancy prevention effects for females were no larger or smaller depending on whether the control group differed in problem behavior prior to program entry; the program's effects on pregnancy prevention outcomes were not significantly smaller or larger for either set of control group sites.

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Published by Harvard Family Research Project