A major task of the Girls Study Group is a thorough review of programs designed to prevent and reduce female delinquency. To develop a comprehensive list of programs, the following steps were completed:

1. Searched five Federal websites (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute of Justice, National Institutes of Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention) for intervention and prevention programs targeting girls’ delinquency.
2. Searched the Juvenile Justice Three Year Plans ( 2000 to 2002) for all 50 states.
3. Searched abstracts produced by the Girls’ Study Group’s literature review, as well as World Wide Web searches for the programs identified in the abstracts.
4. Searched the World Wide Web for programs using terms such as “delinquency,” “girls,” “intervention,” and “prevention,” in various combinations.
5. Incorporated a list of drugs, delinquency, and violence prevention programs for girls that were compiled by study group member Del Elliott.

For each of the programs in the resulting comprehensive list, we gathered information on the program developer, location, setting, target population, components, description, focus, sources of funding, assessments used, and evaluation information. We focused on programs determined to specifically target delinquency (i.e. drug use, prostitution, gang) and/or girls involved in the juvenile justice system. We also collected evaluation materials/research for each of the programs.

Programs with evaluation materials were then rated using the methodological criteria identified in the What Works Repository (WWR). The WWR was originally developed by a multi-disciplinary, multi-department working group in response to recommendations from the White House Task Force for Disadvantaged Youth and the Coalition for Evidenced-Based Policy along with the White House’s and Department of Justices’ general emphasis on evidence-based policy. The WWR was selected because of the consensus of Federal agencies regarding its usefulness and the rigorous methodological standards it employs for determining evidence for program effectiveness.

Using the WWR criteria, programs were classified under six levels of effectiveness: Effective, Effective with Reservation, Promising, Inconclusive Evidence, Insufficient Evidence, and Ineffective. We believe that this is an important first step in providing the evidence-base for girls-only delinquency prevention and intervention programs.

The review process involved the research staff abstracting evaluation material from the delinquency-focused girls-only programs and three staff members independently comparing the evaluation procedure and results to the criteria identified in the What Works Repository. Based on the methodology criteria identified in the What Works Repository. Three staff members independently rated the programs according to the evidence demonstrating their effectiveness. Then, the Principal Investigator and another RTI International PhD staff member systematically reviewed the abstracts and ratings to confirm their accuracy. Where there was disagreement on the rating, discussion and additional review was done to achieve consensus. As a final step, the abstracts and ratings were sent to key Girls Study Group members for their review. Initial results of the program review are available on the Presentations page.