Randomized Controlled Trial of Big Brothers Big Sisters Mentoring for Prevention of Crime and Delinquency

Randomized Controlled Trial of the Big Brothers Big Sisters Community-Based Mentoring Program for Prevention of Crime and Juvenile Delinquency

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) community-based mentoring (CBM) program for prevention of crime and delinquency/conduct problems, including risk and protective factors for these outcomes. Approximately 2,500 youth ages 10-16 will be randomly assigned to either the CBM program or an untreated control group. Study outcomes will be assessed over a 4-year period via both youth- and parent-report surveys and official records of police/court contact (e.g., arrests).

Study Overview

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Conditions: Juvenile Delinquency; Crime
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Big Brothers Big Sisters Community-Based Mentoring Program

Detailed Description

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) community-based mentoring (CBM) program for prevention of crime and delinquency/conduct problems, including risk and protective factors for these outcomes. Participants will be recruited from 16 BBBSA affiliates, which are located in different regions of the U.S. and were invited to serve as sites for the study using a random selection process. The study sample will consist of approximately 2,500 youth ages 10-16 whose parents seek services from one of the participating BBBSA affiliates during the study enrollment period and for whom consent/assent to participate in the research is obtained. Enrolled youth will be randomly assigned to participate in the CBM program (treatment group) or to a control group (no BBBSA programming during the youth's 4-year period of study participation). Youth will be assigned in a 3:1 ratio to the treatment and control groups. Youth and parents will complete survey measures both at study enrollment, prior to notification of assignment to control or treatment group, and 18 months later. Official records of police/court contact (e.g., arrests), with separate parent/guardian consent as provided at study enrollment, will be obtained both for the period preceding each youth's enrollment in the study and for a 4-year period following enrollment.

The study has 4 specific aims:

1. To determine the effects of participation in the Big Brothers Big Sisters CBM program on youth offending as measured by police/court records, i.e., person offense, property offense, drug law violation, public order offense, or status offense.
2. To determine the effects of participation in the BBBS CBM program on the likelihood of youths' involvement in delinquent behavior/conduct problems as assessed by youth and parent reports.
3. To determine the effects of BBBS CBM program participation on the likelihood of youths' involvement in substance use as assessed by self-reports of alcohol use to point of drunkenness, tobacco, or illicit drug use.
4. To determine the effects of BBBS CBM program participation on both risk and protective factors for delinquent/criminal behavior, such as aggression, depressive symptoms, association with deviant peers, self-control, and school connectedness, as assessed by youth and/or parent reports, and to explore the role of these effects in mediating effects of program participation on offending, delinquent behavior, and substance use.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 1361
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Illinois
    • Chicago, Illinois, United States, 60608
      • University of Illinois at Chicago

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 10 years and older (Child, Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion criteria:

• youth is 10 years of age or older
• youth is likely to be eligible for the Big Brothers Big Sisters Community-Based Mentoring program as determined by initial assessment of program staff

Exclusion criteria:

• youth has a severe learning, cognitive or other intellectual disability as reported by the parent
• parent does not both speak and read either English or Spanish
• youth does not have a sibling who is already a study participant
• youth has been matched with a Big Brother/Sister through one of the affiliate's programs in the past
• youth has a sibling currently receiving services from the affiliate for whom services were initiated (i.e., inquiry was made) prior to start of the study
• youth belongs to a group that the affiliate is excluding from study participation based on previous agreement with the research team
• youth is designated as an exception case by affiliate staff (each affiliate will have the opportunity to exclude up to 4% of study-eligible youth from the research prior to consent and random assignment for any reason deemed appropriate (e.g., perceived high need of the youth))

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: BBBS Community-Based Mentoring; Big Brothers Big Sisters Community-Based Mentoring Program	Behavioral: Big Brothers Big Sisters Community-Based Mentoring Program; One-to-one mentoring provided by an adult volunteer with training and ongoing monitoring and support from program staff.
No Intervention: Control; Not eligible to participate in a Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring program, but may participate in other mentoring programs.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Arrest	0/1 indicator based on official police/court/juvenile office records of any of the following types of offenses-person offense, property offense, drug law violation, public order offense, or status offense	4 years
Arrest	0/1 indicator based on official police/court/juvenile office records of any of the following types of offenses-person offense, property offense, drug law violation, public order offense, or status offense	18 months
Delinquency	0/1 indicator based on youth and parent report using 13 items from the Add Health Study (Bearman et al., 1997)	18 months
Substance use	0/1 indicator based on youth report of alcohol use to point of drunkenness, tobacco, or illicit drug use	18 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Truancy	3-item youth-report measure (2 items from Herrera et al., 2013)	18 months
Association with deviant peers	A single measure computed as the average of scores on continuous youth-report measure (Elliott et al., 1996) and one-item (0/1) parent-report indicator from Youth Risk Index (Herrera et al., 2013) after each score has been standardized to mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1.	18 months
School suspensions	One-item (0/1) parent-report indicator from Youth Risk Index (Herrera et al., 2013)	18 months
Depressive symptoms	Depressive Symptoms Pediatric Self-Report - Short Form from the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) (Irwin et al., 2010). Lower scores indicate a better outcome	18 months
Impulsivity	A single measure computed as the average of scores on continuous youth- and parent-report scales (Hay & Meldrum, 2010) after each score has been standardized to mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1.	18 months
Conventional values	Belief in the Moral Order scale of the Communities That Care Youth Survey (Arthur et al., 2002)	18 months
Aggressive behavior	A single measure computed as the average of scores on youth-report Aggression Scale (Orpinas & Frankowski, 2001) and parent-report Parent's Checklist from the Fast Track Project: https://fasttrackproject.org/techrept/p/pcl/ after each score has been standardized to mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1.	18 months
Academic success	4-item measure of grades in core subjects (Herrera et al., 2013)	18 months
Positive parenting	Parent-report Positive Parenting subscale from the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (Essau et al., 2006)	18 months
Parent involvement	Parent-report Involvement subscale from the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (Essau et al., 2006)	18 months
Parental monitoring and supervision	Parent-report Poor Monitoring/Supervision subscale from the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (Essau et al., 2006)	18 months
Parental consistent discipline	Parent-report Inconsistent Discipline subscale from the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (Essau et al., 2006)	18 months
Family relationships	Parent-report General Functioning scale of the Family Assessment Device (Epstein et al., 1983)	18 months
Perceived social support from family members	Youth-report Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988): Family Members subscale	18 months
Perceived social support from peers	Youth-report Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988): Peers subscale	18 months
Perceived social support from special person	Youth-report Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988): Significant Others subscale	18 months
School engagement	Youth-report Behavioral Engagement subscale of the Engagement versus Disaffection with Learning Scale (Skinner et al., 2009)	18 months
Goal-setting and pursuit	Parent-report Goal Orientation scale from Child Trends: https://www.childtrends.org/research/research-by-topic/positive-indicators-project/goal-orientation/	18 months
Involvement in out-of-school-time activities	Parent-report (Herrera et al., 2007)	18 months
Volunteering in the community	Youth-report single-item (Herrera et al., 2013)	18 months
Life satisfaction	Youth-report single-item measure from WHO's 2005-06 Health Behaviors in School Age Children Survey: http://filer.uib.no/psyfa/HEMIL-senteret/HBSC/2006_Mandatory_Questionnaire.pdf	18 months
Self-esteem	Youth-report Global Self-Esteem subscale of brief version of the Self-Esteem Questionnaire (DuBois et al., 1996; Silverthorn et al., 2017)	18 months
Happiness	Youth-report Positive Affect Pediatric Self-Report - Short Form from the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) (Forrest et al., 2017)	18 months
Grit	Youth-report Grit Scale for Children (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009)	18 months
Social competence	Social Competencies Scale of the Youth Outcome Measures Online Toolbox (Muris, 2001)	18 months
Special interest development	Youth-report (adapted from DuBois & Keller, 2017)	18 months
Hopeful future expectations	Youth-report abbreviated version of the Hopeful Future Expectations Scale (Bowers et al., 2012)	18 months
Career exploration	Youth-report 2 items (adapted from Herrera et al., 2011)	18 months
College exploration	Youth-report 1 item (adapted from Herrera et al., 2011)	18 months
Self-advocacy	Youth-report (Jarjoura et al., 2017)	18 months
Coping efficacy	Youth-report 1 item adapted from Coping Efficacy Scale (Sandler et al., 2000)	18 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Illinois at Chicago
• Collaborators: Laura and John Arnold Foundation; Big Brothers Big Sisters of America; Herrera Consulting Group, LLC; National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: David L DuBois, PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago; Principal Investigator: Carla Herrera, PhD, Herrera Consulting Group, LLC

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Duckworth AL, Quinn PD. Development and validation of the short grit scale (grit-s). J Pers Assess. 2009 Mar;91(2):166-74. doi: 10.1080/00223890802634290.
• Irwin DE, Stucky B, Langer MM, Thissen D, Dewitt EM, Lai JS, Varni JW, Yeatts K, DeWalt DA. An item response analysis of the pediatric PROMIS anxiety and depressive symptoms scales. Qual Life Res. 2010 May;19(4):595-607. doi: 10.1007/s11136-010-9619-3. Epub 2010 Mar 7.
• Arthur MW, Hawkins JD, Pollard JA, Catalano RF, Baglioni AJ Jr. Measuring risk and protective factors for substance use, delinquency, and other adolescent problem behaviors. The Communities That Care Youth Survey. Eval Rev. 2002 Dec;26(6):575-601. doi: 10.1177/0193841X0202600601.
• Bearman, P. S., Jones, J., & Udry, J. R. (1997). The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health: Research design. Retrieved from http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth.
• Bowers, E. P., Geldhof, G. J., Schmid, K. L., Napolitano, C. M., Minor, K., & Lerner, J. V. (2012). Relationships with important nonparental adults and positive youth development: An examination of youth self-regulatory strengths as mediators. Research in Human Development, 9, 298-316. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15427609.2012.729911
• DuBois, D. L., Felner, R. D., Brand, S., Phillips, R. S. C., & Lease, A. M. (1996). Early adolescent self-esteem: A developmental-ecological framework and assessment strategy. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 6, 543-579.
• DuBois DL, Keller TE. Investigation of the Integration of Supports for Youth Thriving Into a Community-Based Mentoring Program. Child Dev. 2017 Sep;88(5):1480-1491. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12887. Epub 2017 Jun 19.
• Essau, C. A., Sasagawa, S., & Frick, P. J. (2006). Psychometric properties of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 15, 597-616.
• Epstein, N. B., Baldwin, L. M., & Bishop, D. S. (1983). The McMaster Family Assessment Device. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 9, 171-180.
• Herrera C, Grossman JB, Kauh TJ, McMaken J. Mentoring in schools: an impact study of big brothers big sisters school-based mentoring. Child Dev. 2011 Jan-Feb;82(1):346-61. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01559.x.
• Herrera, C., Linden, L. L., Arbreton, J. A. & Grossman, J. B. (2011). Testing the impact of Higher Achievement's year-round out-of-school-time program on academic outcomes. Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures.
• Jarjoura, G. R. et al. (2017). The Evaluation of The Mentoring Enhancement Demonstration Program. Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research. Manuscript in preparation.
• Muris, P. (2001). A brief questionnaire for measuring self-efficacy in youths. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 23, 145-149. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1010961119608
• Orpinas P, & Frankowski R. (2001). The aggression scale: a self-report measure of aggressive behavior for young adolescents. Journal of Early Adolescence, 21, 51-68.
• Sandler IN, Tein JY, Mehta P, Wolchik S, Ayers T. Coping efficacy and psychological problems of children of divorce. Child Dev. 2000 Jul-Aug;71(4):1099-118. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00212.
• Silverthorn, N., DuBois, D. L., Lewis, K. M., Reed, A., Bavarian, N., Day, J., . . . Flay, B. R. (2017). Effects of a school-based social-emotional and character development program on self-esteem levels and processes: A cluster-randomized controlled trial. SAGE Open, 7(3), 1-12. doi:10.1177/2158244017713238
• Skinner, E. A., Kindermann, T. A., & Furrer, C. J. (2009). A motivational perspective on engagement and disaffection: Conceptualization and assessment of children's behavioral and emotional participation in academic activities in the classroom. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 69, 493-525. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0013164408323233
• Zimet, G. D., Dahlem, N. W., Zimet, S. G., & Farley, G. K. (1988). The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Journal of Personality Assessment, 52, 30-41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5201_2
• Elliott, D. S., Wilson, W. J., Huizinga, D., Sampson, R. J., Elliott, A., & Rankin, B. (1996). The effects of neighborhood disadvantage on adolescent development. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 33, 389. doi:10.1177=0022427896033004002
• Forrest CB, Ravens-Sieberer U, Devine J, Becker BD, Teneralli R, Moon J, Carle A, Tucker CA, Bevans KB. Development and Evaluation of the PROMIS(R) Pediatric Positive Affect Item Bank, Child-Report and Parent-Proxy Editions. J Happiness Stud. 2018 Mar;19(3):699-718. doi: 10.1007/s10902-016-9843-9. Epub 2017 Jan 21.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): February 2, 2018
• Primary Completion (Estimated): June 30, 2024
• Study Completion (Estimated): June 30, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 4, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 4, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): April 12, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimated): March 6, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 4, 2024
• Last Verified: March 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: prevention; mentoring
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2017-0291

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: At the study's conclusion, all individual participant data will be de-identified and made publicly available on the Open Science Framework website along with survey instruments and any code used to clean and analyze the data.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Data will become available August 2024 and will be permanently available thereafter
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: Requests to access the IPD will be made in writing to the Principal Investigator and approved so long as there is a valid scientific rationale and appropriate IRB approval. The mechanism for sharing the data, all of which will be de-identified, will be secure and encrypted FTP and subject to approval of the PI's institutional IRB. Supporting information (see above list) will be available on the Open Science Framework at the web address below.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; SAP; ICF; ANALYTIC_CODE

Study Data/Documents

1. Individual Participant Data Set
   Information identifier: osf.io/8ukfv

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No