Understanding the Influence of Outreach, Case Management, and Service Engagement on Interrupting Community Violence

Since its inception, the Safe and Successful Youth Initiative (SSYI) has shown promise for reducing violent crime at the community level in Massachusetts. Based on the cumulative results of evaluations conducted by AIR and WestEd, SSYI was designated as a “promising program” in 2021 by the美国司法部犯罪部门evidence review repository and theOffice of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Model Programs Guide.

最近，马萨诸塞州卫生与公共服务部执行办公室与空中签订了签约，并以西方的身份在个人影响层面上评估SSYI。最新的研究使用有关313个SSYI客户的犯罪历史记录和案例管理记录的现有数据，该研究重点介绍了四个关键问题，这些问题研究了受SSYI客户外展，案例管理和服务参与的剂量和累积影响的客户累犯结果策略。

Key Findings

The study results provide substantial support for the SSYI theory of change, whereby frequent client involvement with SSYI outreach workers and case managers is associated with greater service engagement, program retention, and decreased recidivism. Specifically:

• Outreach frequency (e.g., once a week, once a month) and outreach amount (count of outreach contacts) were directly related to the time it took for client to enroll in SSYI and their eventual program participation, and this relationship was statistically significant.
• The total number of outreach contacts that clients experienced correlated positively with the total number of priority risks and needs assessed after enrollment; and case managers were statistically more likely to meet more frequently with clients who were assessed for risk and needs.
• The overall level of SSYI clients’ engagement in services was directly related to their total amount of contact with outreach workers and case managers. Further, having a case plan with goals and objectives for clients was related to greater levels of contact with outreach workers and case managers. Both results were statistically significant.
• The total number of contacts between clients and outreach workers and the total number of meetings between clients and case managers were eachinverselyrelated to recidivism after program exit. These relationships were statistically significant.
• 服务客户参与的服务越多，离开Ssyi后，他们重新犯罪的可能性就越小。参与多个SSYI服务与累犯之间存在反比关系。这种关系具有统计学意义。
• The most typical SSYI clients did not have any recidivism events during their enrollment in SSYI and recidivism events declined as clients remained engaged in the program. Only 20% of the clients who left the program recidivated within 18 months after exit.
  

Future Research

Though this study shows the critical importance of frequent contact between SSYI clients and their outreach workers and case managers for engaging clients in the program and services and for impacting recidivism, future research is needed to understand in greater detailhowSSYI program practices influence these relationships and the resulting impact on client outcomes.

Further, the study found that clients older than age 21 had the greatest success in SSYI and appear to engage most frequently with outreach workers and case managers. Understanding the desistance pathway foryoungerclients in SSYI will be important for maximizing violence reductions because younger clients have more years ahead of them to possibly reoffend if prevention efforts are unsuccessful.

Finally, the study showed that the more services clients receive, the stronger the recidivism prevention outcome becomes, analyses also revealed that no single service on its own was related to reduced recidivism, after controlling for previous offense history. This result invites further examination into whether the services themselves are tied to behavior changes or instead accrue from collateral benefits from SSYI engagement (e.g., developing new peer networks, having less free time to engage in antisocial behavior).