Juvenile Justice Girls Randomized Control Trial: Young Adult Follow-up

February 23, 2022 updated by: Leslie D. Leve, Oregon Social Learning Center

Juvenile Justice Girls: Pathways to Adjustment and System Use in Young Adulthood

This study is a young adult follow-up of 166 females who originally participated in an RCT during adolescence due to their involvement in the juvenile justice system.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Females under age 18 years old are the fastest-growing segment of the juvenile justice population and are at risk for negative co-occurring outcomes including drug abuse, HIV/STI risk, criminal behavior, and educational failure. As they enter young adulthood, this constellation of behaviors puts them at heightened risk for early parenthood and subsequent involvement in the child welfare system (for their parenting behaviors) and the adult corrections system (for criminal behaviors). Such system involvement is costly, and its prevention would be of great significance to public health; however, very little is known about factors leading to females' success/failure in young adulthood and factors that might prevent involvement in these two public systems. This study aims to further our understanding of the pathways to and the prevention of HIV/STI risk, drug use, and child welfare and adult corrections involvement by following-up 166 women who participated in two randomized intervention trials aimed at reducing delinquency during adolescence. In the original studies, juvenile justice girls who had been referred for out-of-home placement due to chronic delinquency were randomly assigned to services as usual or to Treatment Foster Care Oregon (TFCO, formerly known as MTFC). Efficacy of the intervention with this sample has been shown at 12- and 24-month follow-ups on criminal referral rates, days spent in locked settings, deviant peer associations, educational engagement, and pregnancy prevention. The investigators propose to examine the developmental pathways for these juvenile justice girls into young adulthood (ages 21-28 years) using innovative data collection and data analytic techniques, with foci on the long-term effects of TFCO, the mediators of young adult adjustment and child welfare/corrections involvement, and the cost effectiveness and cost avoidance of TFCO on these outcomes. The overarching aim is to identify potential targets for subsequent intervention. One in-person assessment is proposed with each female and her current romantic partner (if she has one); in addition, telephone interviews will be conducted every 6 months for the duration of the study, and system data from child welfare and adult corrections will be collected.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

166

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Oregon
      • Eugene, Oregon, United States, 97401
        • Oregon Social Learning Center
      • Eugene, Oregon, United States, 97403
        • University of Oregon

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

13 years to 18 years (Child, Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

Female

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • female
  • 13-17 years old
  • at least one criminal referral in the prior year
  • court-mandated placement in out-of-home care

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Currently pregnant

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Treatment Foster Care Oregon (TFCO)
Youth are placed individually in well-trained and supervised foster homes. Basic components include: (a) daily telephone contact with TFCO parents using the Parent Daily Report; (b) weekly foster parent group meetings focused on supervision, training in parenting practices, and support; (c) an individualized behavior management program implemented daily in the home by foster parent; (d) individualized skills training for the youth; (e) family therapy for aftercare family focused on parent management strategies; (f) close monitoring of school attendance, performance, and homework completion; (g) case management to coordinate TFCO, family, peer, and school settings; (h) 24-hour on-call staff availability to TFCO and biological parents; and (i) psychiatric consultation.
Behavioral: Treatment Foster Care (TFCO)
Youth placed individually in well-trained and supervised foster homes. Basic components: (a) daily telephone contact with TFCO parents; (b) weekly foster parent group meetings focused on supervision, training in parenting practices, and support; (c) an individualized behavior management program implemented daily in the home by foster parent; (d) individualized skills training for the youth; (e) family therapy for aftercare family focused on parent management strategies; (f) close monitoring of school attendance, performance, and homework completion; (g) case management to coordinate TFCO, family, peer, and school settings; (h) 24-hour on-call staff availability to TFCO and biological parents; and (i) psychiatric consultation. Services typically last approximately 6 months.
Other Names:
  • Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care
Active Comparator: Group Care
Group Care is the usual service for youth placed in out-of-home care for chronic delinquency in Oregon. These programs represented typical services for girls being referred to out-of-home care by the juvenile justice system and had 2-51 youth in residence (M = 21) and 1-50 staff members (Mdn = 2); most also had onsite schooling. Although the programs differed somewhat in theoretical orientations, 86% reported that they endorsed a specific treatment model, of which the primary philosophy was a behavioral (70%), eclectic (26%), or family-style therapeutic approach (4%).
Behavioral: Group Care
Group Care is the usual service for youth placed in out-of-home care for chronic delinquency in Oregon. These programs represented typical services for girls being referred to out-of-home care by the juvenile justice system and had 2-51 youth in residence (M = 21) and 1-50 staff members (Mdn = 2); most also had onsite schooling. Although the programs differed somewhat in theoretical orientations, 86% reported that they endorsed a specific treatment model, of which the primary philosophy was a behavioral (70%), eclectic (26%), or family-style therapeutic approach (4%). Services typically last approximately 6 months.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Delinquency
Time Frame: Months 12, 24, 36, and young adulthood (ave. of 7 year follow-up + 10 year follow-up)
Measured as self-reported criminal activity and count of official arrests and criminal referrals
Months 12, 24, 36, and young adulthood (ave. of 7 year follow-up + 10 year follow-up)
substance use
Time Frame: Months 12, 24, 36 and young adulthood (ave. of 7-year follow-up + 10 year follow-up)
Measured via self-reported use and diagnostic interview assessment
Months 12, 24, 36 and young adulthood (ave. of 7-year follow-up + 10 year follow-up)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
HIV risk behavior
Time Frame: Months 12, 24, 36 and young adulthood (ave. of 7-year follow-up)
Measured as self-reported engagement in sexual behaviors
Months 12, 24, 36 and young adulthood (ave. of 7-year follow-up)
economic costs
Time Frame: young adulthood (age 18-28; average of 7-year follow-up)
Measured by comparing the costs of intervention delivery relative to the two intervention programs relative to costs incurred through time in detention, jail, and prison; relative to costs incurred due to child welfare involvement; and relative to symptom counts on self-report inventories.
young adulthood (age 18-28; average of 7-year follow-up)
Depression
Time Frame: Months 6, 12, 18, 24 and Young Adult (average 7 year follow-up)
Measured on the CESD depression inventory and the Brief Symptom Inventory, and via diagnostic interview
Months 6, 12, 18, 24 and Young Adult (average 7 year follow-up)

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Oregon Social Learning Center

Collaborators

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
University of Oregon
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Leslie Leve, PhD, University of Oregon

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

January 1, 1997

Primary Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2016

Study Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2016

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 6, 2011

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 22, 2011

First Posted (Estimate)

April 26, 2011

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

March 11, 2022

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 23, 2022

Last Verified

February 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • R01DA024672 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)
  • R01DA015208 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)
  • R01MH054257-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)
  • R03MH091611 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

Undecided

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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