Development of a Risk and Resilience-Based Out-of-School Time Program for Children and Youths

In a seminal article on theory and practice, Polansky (1986) argued for the application of theory to social interventions aimed at children, youths, and families. Though much has changed in the ensuing decades, Polansky's assertion may be truer today than ever before. Unfortunately, in the absence of theory, we have witnessed the development and persistence of numerous incoherent, contradictory social policies and ineffective services for children, youths, and families. Clearly, a unifying theoretical approach would not solve all of the inconsistencies within and across the juvenile justice, health, mental health, substance abuse, education, and developmental disabilities sectors. However, the application of theory to programs and policies for high-risk children and youths would likely reduce service system fragmentation, increase the feasibility and usefulness of outcome research, and perhaps even create upward pressure to encourage policymakers to address service integration. In this article, we argue for the cross-system adoption of a risk and resilience framework for policies and services that affect high-risk children, youths, and families. First, we explore the risk and resilience framework in some detail and suggest how its adoption might create change in major systems of care. Second, we explain how the framework was useful as a guide to the design and implementation of the Bridge Project, an OST program for high-risk children and youths in three public housing developments in an urban western city. To illustrate the utility of the framework for evaluating outcomes and supporting principles of evidence-based practice, we describe findings from the 2004-05 academic year. A RISK AND RESILIENCE FRAMEWORK FOR CHILD AND YOUTH SERVICES U.S. history is marked by broad cyclical swings in social policy and programs aimed at high-risk and troubled children and youths (Bernard, 1992; Jenson & Howard, 1998). Driven by inconsistencies in political ideology and influenced by changes in social norms and economic conditions, policies and interventions for children and youths have undergone vast changes over the past century (Jenson & Fraser, 2006). Nowhere is this propensity more pronounced than in the juvenile justice system (Barton, 2006).To discern the shifts in U.S. social policy aimed at young people, one has only to consider the ideological differences between the values underlying the establishment of the juvenile court in 1899 and the current values undergirding a system that would consider executing a developmentally disabled young person whose crime was committed as a child (Zimring, 2005).A unified framework that informs the direction of programs and policies for high-risk children, youths, and families is necessary to increase the consistency and efficacy of social interventions for young people and parents. A risk and resilience framework holds great promise as such a unifying framework. Background The origins of the risk and resilience framework can be traced to the late 1960s and early 1970s through the work of ecological theorists such as Bronfenbrenner (1979) and Germain (1979).These and other scholars asserted that child and adolescent development is deeply affected by interactions between the biological, psychological, and social characteristics of a child and conditions in her or his family, peer group, school, and community. These ideas were applied during the 1970s and 1980s by professionals in the public health field to help understand and prevent smoking and heart disease (Botvin, 2004). Subsequently, the framework was adapted to efforts aimed at preventing childhood and adolescent problems such as early pregnancy and parenting, delinquency, alcohol and other drug abuse, and violence (Hawkins, Jenson, Catalano, & Lishner, 1988). Adoption of a risk and resilience framework led researchers and policymakers to place greater importance on understanding the wide array of influences that affect children--factors associated with individual, family, social, and community conditions--and that commonly occur in the lives of high-risk and troubled children and youths (Rutter, 1979, 1987). …