Program Goals
The goals of the Coaching for Communities program are to reduce antisocial behaviors and build protective factors among youth through meaningful relationships with adult mentors.
Target Population/Eligibility
The program targets mid-to-late teens who display low levels of antisocial behaviors in more than one area (e.g., behavior problems at home, crime in the community), but who do not display persistent delinquency (defined as three or more convictions in the past year). Furthermore, eligible youth must have one of the following risk factors: low self-esteem, high impulsivity, low levels of positive outlook, negative thoughts and feelings, low aspirations for the future, or involvement in antisocial peer networks.
Program Components
The program has two components: 1) a 5-day residential retreat, and 2) 9 months of post-retreat support from an adult volunteer mentor. During the residential retreat, youth participate in intensive coursework exercises and physical activity led by program staff, which is designed to encourage prosocial behavior and improve sense of self-achievement and self-esteem. Coursework exercises explore a structured series of topics (e.g., learning from what one already knows, handling breakdowns, and distinguishing fact from interpretation) and require youth to identify the cause of their problems, consider consequences of their actions, and set related goals for themselves.
Following the retreat, each youth is assigned a mentor who works with him or her once a month for 9 months to help the youth achieve the personal goals that he or she set during the retreat. At each meeting, mentors and program staff work with youth on themed goals, including relationship building, personal aspirations, drug awareness, sexual health, community awareness and teamwork, car crimes, driving education, vocational skills, and self-expression. Each mentor is also expected to connect with the youth (directly or indirectly) at least three other times during the week. At the end of the program, youth who complete both components come together for a follow-up meeting.
Mentors and mentees are matched on a number of criteria, including gender, interests, and past experiences (Axford et al. 2006). Mentors and facilitators use a program manual to implement program components. The mentors are also expected to introduce the youth to new social networks. Attendance for each program component and the amount of contact between youth and their mentors is recorded.
Key Personnel
Mentors are recruited from the local community, including local businesses. Mentors volunteer to work with their assigned youth for the duration of the 9-month, post-retreat follow-up period. Youth who meet the eligibility criteria are referred to the program by personnel from local children’s service agencies.
Program Theory
The program’s focus on providing youth with opportunities to reflect on their behaviors, consider the consequences of their actions, set related goals, and work on achieving those goals with support and modeling from their mentors and program staff is consistent with social-learning theory and social-cognitive theory. These theories suggest that behavior is a function of the interaction between personal factors and environmental stimuli that promote behavior change through a variety of processes, including vicarious learning and differential reinforcement (Bandura 1971, 1999). The program’s goals of using a supportive relationship with an adult mentor to build protective factors among youth at risk of antisocial behavior is also consistent with positive youth development models (Benson, Scales, Hamilton, and Sesma 2006).
