Testing the Efficacy of the Ability School Engagement Partnership Program (ASEP) (ASEP)

This project is an up-scaled test of the Ability School Engagement Partnership (ASEP) Project. The ASEP is a partnership program that aims to increase school attendance and is grounded in the theory of Third-Party-Policing (TPP). In ASEP, school-based police officers partner with schools (i.e., the third-party) who have legal powers to control and prevent school absenteeism. The ASEP intervention includes an ASEP conference in which the legal requirements to attend school are explicitly communicated in a procedurally just way to young people missing school and their parents/guardians. Restorative Outcomes Australia (ROA) is a provide provider partner who will oversee the facilitation of the ASEP conferences. While the program is designed to re-engage these young people in school and/or facilitate transitions to work and reduce antisocial behavior (e.g., delinquency), this trial will also test the capacity of the program to improve collaboration between the schools and police and also monitor young participants' future life outcomes, such as future welfare dependence.

Study Overview

• Status: Unknown
• Conditions: Antisocial Behavior; School Attendance; Welfare Dependence
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Ability School Engagement Program Conference

Detailed Description

The ASEP is grounded in the theory of Third Party Policing (TPP). TPP interventions focus on controlling negative behavioral outcomes through partnerships that use a third party's legal powers. In ASEP, the police partner with the schools to work together to engage with young people, reduce their anti-social behavior and increase their school attendance. At the core of the partnership is communication of the legal lever: in ASEP, it is the Queensland Education (General Provisions) Act (2006) - requiring young people attend school up to age 16 and holding parents legally responsible. The laws are communicated to parents and young people who are not regularly attending school in a procedurally fair way within the context of an ASEP conference. The ASEP conference is especially designed to incorporate fair communication of the laws and consequences and involves a purpose-built script that seeks to increase willingness of both parents and young people to comply with the law. The ASEP conference participants include a trained facilitator (from Restorative Outcomes Australia; ROA), the young person missing a lot of school, their parent or guardian, a uniformed school-based police officer, and a school representative (e.g., teacher). An individually tailored Action Plan is developed during the conference which stipulate the "actions" that all conference participants are to take over the subsequent two months in order to ensure that the young person increases their school attendance and re-engages with school and/or transitions into paid work.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 753
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Australia
  • Queensland
    • Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 4072
      • Recruiting
      • The University of Queensland
      • Contact: Lorraine Mazerolle, Ph.D.; Phone Number: +61 7 334 67877; Email: l.mazerolle@uq.edu.au
      • Principal Investigator: Lorraine Mazerolle, Ph.D.
      • Sub-Investigator: Sarah Bennett, Ph.D.
      • Sub-Investigator: Stephanie M Cardwell, Ph.D.

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 12 years to 16 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• High school aged young people only, aged 12 to 16;
• Have 15% or more unexplained absences over each other previous two school terms;
• Have no known legitimate explanation for absences (e.g., ongoing medical issue); and
• Have at least one responsibly adult in their lives (e.g., parent, guardian, or carer) who provides social and/or financial support.

Exclusion Criteria:

• None

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Experiment; For young people from schools randomly assigned to the experimental ASEP condition will participate in the ASEP intervention. The ASEP intervention is a Third-Party Policing partnership that involves a partnership between police and school, an ASEP conference and follow up which is organized and led by a conference facilitator with the young person, their parent (or guardian), a school representative (e.g., teacher), and a uniformed school-based police officer. The police and school representatives will be trained by the facilitator to utilize procedurally just dialogue during the entirety of the conference. The ASEP conference script will utilize a procedurally just dialogue to increase both the young person and their parents' perceptions and knowledge of the legitimacy of the truancy laws, police, and schools in order to gain willing compliance to follow the rules.	Behavioral: Ability School Engagement Program Conference; The ASEP conference focuses on understanding the reasons behind why the young person is not attending school regularly, understand how the young person's non-attendance affects other conference participants, highlight the legal consequences of parents and/or guardians to ensure that their child attends school, and the development of a young person-centered Action Plan, which will specifically detail the "actions" that all parties are to take over the next three months to ensure that the young person re-engages with school and/or transitions into paid work.
No Intervention: Control; Participants allocated to the control condition will be given the "business-as-usual' approach to handling school non-attendance. The control participants will be sanctioned in the usual manner for engaging in truancy through the requirements denoted in the Queensland Education (General Provisions) Act (2006).

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Official School Absences	A count of the number of school absences of young people.	Six-Months Post-Intervention
Official Arrest Records	A count of official arrest records of young people.	Six-Months Post Intervention
Perceptions of School Legitimacy	These measures are adapted from the original ASEP Project Trial (Mazerolle, 2014). The original ASEP researchers adapted these scales from Murphy and Mearns (2008), Sunshine and Tyler (2003), and Tankebe (2009). These indices include five items that address respondents' (young people and parents/guardians in the experimental group only) perceptions of legitimacy of school staff with higher values equating to better perceptions of school staff legitimacy.	Two-months post intervention
Perceptions of School Procedural Justice	These measures are adapted from the original ASEP Project Trial (Mazerolle, 2014). The original ASEP researchers adapted these scales from Murphy and Mearns (2008), Sunshine and Tyler (2003), and Tankebe (2009). These indices include five items that address respondents' (young people and parents/guardians in the experimental group only) perceptions of procedural justice of school staff with higher values equating to better perceptions of school staff procedural justice.	Two-months post intervention
Perceptions of Police Legitimacy	These measures are adapted from the original ASEP Project Trial (Mazerolle, 2014). The original ASEP researchers adapted these scales from Murphy and Mearns (2008), Sunshine and Tyler (2003), and Tankebe (2009). These indices include five items that address respondents' (young people and parents/guardians in the experimental group only) perceptions of legitimacy of police in general with higher values equating to better perceptions of police legitimacy.	Two-months post intervention
Perceptions of Police Procedural Justice	These measures are adapted from the original ASEP Project Trial (Mazerolle, 2014). The original ASEP researchers adapted these scales from Murphy and Mearns (2008), Sunshine and Tyler (2003), and Tankebe (2009). These indices include five items that address respondents' (young people and parents/guardians in the experimental group only) perceptions of procedural justice of police in general.	Two-months post intervention
Perceptions of Family Legitimacy	Adapted from the work of Trinkner, 2012; Trinkner et al., 2012; Trinker & Cohn, 2014. Measures respondents' (young people and parents/guardians in the experimental group only) perceptions of family legitimacy with higher values equating to better perceptions of family legitimacy.	Two-months post intervention
Perceptions of Family Procedural Justice	Adapted from the work of Trinkner, 2012; Trinkner et al., 2012; Trinker & Cohn, 2014. Measures respondents' (young people and parents/guardians in the experimental group only) perceptions of family procedural justice with higher values equating to better perceptions of family legitimacy.	Two-months post intervention
General Well-being	The Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (SWEMWBS; Haver et al., 2015; Stewart-Brown et al., 2009; Taggart et al., 2015; Tennant et al., 2007) to be administered to young people and parents in the experimental condition only. It includes 7 items, scores range from 7 to 35, and higher scores coincide with better well-being.	Two-months post intervention
Self-efficacy	Includes 12 items from the Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced (COPE) Inventory (Carver et al., 1989; Carver, 1997) to be administered to young people and parents in the experimental condition only. Scores will range from 12 to 48 and coded so that higher values equate to better coping skills.	Two-months post intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: The University of Queensland
• Collaborators: Restorative Outcomes Australia; Department of Education, Queensland; Queensland Police Service; Australian Department of Social Services
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Lorraine Mazerolle, Ph.D., The University of Queensland; Principal Investigator: Sarah Bennett, Ph.D., The University of Queensland; Principal Investigator: Stephanie Cardwell, Ph.D., The University of Queensland

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Stewart-Brown S, Tennant A, Tennant R, Platt S, Parkinson J, Weich S. Internal construct validity of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): a Rasch analysis using data from the Scottish Health Education Population Survey. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2009 Feb 19;7:15. doi: 10.1186/1477-7525-7-15.
• Tennant R, Hiller L, Fishwick R, Platt S, Joseph S, Weich S, Parkinson J, Secker J, Stewart-Brown S. The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): development and UK validation. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2007 Nov 27;5:63. doi: 10.1186/1477-7525-5-63.
• Carver CS, Scheier MF, Weintraub JK. Assessing coping strategies: a theoretically based approach. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1989 Feb;56(2):267-83. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.56.2.267.
• Carver CS. You want to measure coping but your protocol's too long: consider the brief COPE. Int J Behav Med. 1997;4(1):92-100. doi: 10.1207/s15327558ijbm0401_6.
• Antrobus, E., Bennett, S., Mazerolle, L., & Eggins, E. (2019). Parental and student perceptions of procedural justice and legitimacy in the context of truancy: Results from a randomized field trial. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 52(4), 534-557.
• Bennett, S., Mazerolle, L., Antrobus, E., Eggins, E., & Piquero, A. R. (2018). Truancy intervention reduces crime: Results from a randomized field trial. Justice Quarterly, 35(2), 309-329.
• Cardwell, S. M., Mazerolle, L., & Piquero, A. R. (2019). Parental attachment and truant rationalizations of antisocial behavior: findings from a randomized controlled trial. Journal of Crime and Justice, 1-19.
• Cardwell, S. M., Mazerolle, L., & Piquero, A. R. (2019). Truancy intervention and violent offending: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 49.
• Cardwell, S. M., Mazerolle, L., Bennett, S., & Piquero, A. R. (2019). Changing the relationship between impulsivity and antisocial behavior: the impact of a school engagement program. Crime & Delinquency, 65(8), 1076-1101.
• Cohn, E. S., Trinkner, R. J., Rebellon, C. J., Van Gundy, K. T., & Cole, L. M. (2012). Legal attitudes and legitimacy: Extending the integrated legal socialization model. Victims & Offenders, 7(4), 385-406.
• Mazerolle, L. (2014). The power of policing partnerships: Sustaining the gains. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 10(3), 341-365.
• Mazerolle L, Antrobus E, Bennett S, Eggins E. Reducing Truancy and Fostering a Willingness to Attend School: Results from a Randomized Trial of a Police-School Partnership Program. Prev Sci. 2017 May;18(4):469-480. doi: 10.1007/s11121-017-0771-7.
• Mazerolle, L., Antrobus, E., Cardwell, S. M., Piquero, A. R., & Bennett, S. (2019). Harmonizing legal socialization to reduce antisocial behavior: Results from a randomized field trial of truanting young people. Justice Quarterly, 1-28.
• Mazerolle, L., Bennett, S., Antrobus, E., Cardwell, S. M., Eggins, E., & Piquero, A. R. (2019). Disrupting the pathway from truancy to delinquency: a randomized field trial test of the longitudinal impact of a school engagement program. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 35(4), 663-689.
• Murphy, K., & Mearns, M. (2008). The Public Safety and Security in Australia Survey: Survey methodology and preliminary findings. ARC Centre for Excellence in Policing and Security (Working Paper, October 2008). The Australian National University.
• Sunshine, J., & Tyler, T. R. (2003). The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping public support for policing. Law & Society Review, 37(3), 513-548.
• Tankebe, J. (2009). Public cooperation with the police in Ghana: Does procedural fairness matter? Criminology, 47(4), 1265-1293.
• Trinkner, R. (2012). Testing the procedural justice model of legal socialization: Expanding beyond the legal world. (Doctoral dissertation). University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire.
• Trinkner R, Cohn ES, Rebellon CJ, Van Gundy K. Don't trust anyone over 30: parental legitimacy as a mediator between parenting style and changes in delinquent behavior over time. J Adolesc. 2012 Feb;35(1):119-32. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2011.05.003. Epub 2011 Jun 12.
• Trinkner R, Cohn ES. Putting the "social" back in legal socialization: procedural justice, legitimacy, and cynicism in legal and nonlegal authorities. Law Hum Behav. 2014 Dec;38(6):602-17. doi: 10.1037/lhb0000107. Epub 2014 Sep 22.
• Haver A, Akerjordet K, Caputi P, Furunes T, Magee C. Measuring mental well-being: A validation of the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale in Norwegian and Swedish. Scand J Public Health. 2015 Nov;43(7):721-7. doi: 10.1177/1403494815588862. Epub 2015 Jun 3.
• Taggart, F., Stewart-Brown, S., & Parkinson, J. (2015). Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) User Guide, Version 2. NHS Health Scotland.

Helpful Links

• Crime Solutions: Ability School Engagement Program

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): June 21, 2019
• Primary Completion (Anticipated): November 30, 2021
• Study Completion (Anticipated): November 30, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 20, 2020
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 20, 2020
• First Posted (Actual): February 24, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 9, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 5, 2020
• Last Verified: March 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Antisocial Behavior; School Attendance; Welfare Dependence; Third-Party Policing Partnerships
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Personality Disorders; Antisocial Personality Disorder
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2019002851

Drug and device information, study documents

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