To get on the waiting list, contact Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado, Campus Box 442, Boulder, CO 80309-0442. The goal of the program is to improve parent and child outcomes. Child abuse and neglect was lower and the developmental quotients of children at 12 and 24 months were higher in the treatment group than in the control group for poor, unmarried teens. Local programs are autonomously funded affiliates of the national office and maintain approximately 75,000 active matches between a volunteer adult and a youth. Matches are carefully made using established procedures and criteria.
Visits encourage the development of a caring relationship between the matched pair.
QOP provides education, training, employment, development and service activities, coupled with a sustained relationship with a peer group and a caring adult, over the four years of high school in small groups of disadvantaged teens. Financial incentives are offered to increase participation, completion and long-range planning. Results from the pilot test of this program indicate that QOP participants, compared to the control group, were less likely to be arrested during the juvenile years, were more likely to have graduated from high school, to be enrolled in higher education or training, planning to complete four years of college, and less likely to become a teen parent. Scott Henggler of the University of South Carolina Department of Psychology devised the Multisystemic Therapy approach. Behavior problems can be maintained by dysfunctional transactions within or between any one or a combination of these systems.