This report provides a summary and discussion of the key findings from evaluations of five Community Youth Programmes. The programmes were funded by the Ministry of Justice through the Crime Prevention Unit (CPU), and the New Zealand Police. An independent team evaluated these programmes from 2003 to 2006.
Although all programmes aimed to reduce youth offending by using a case management model, the providers delivered quite different programmes.
Originally, all evaluations were to include formative, process and outcome evaluation phases. However, not all the phases were completed, for several reasons, including: the funding of two programmes being withdrawn part-way through their evaluations; programme staff changes; a lack of suitable programme records; and difficulty in determining offending histories. Two of the five programmes had formative evaluations and the others had formative and process evaluations.
The findings from these evaluations show that working in the youth justice sector is challenging and complex. The evaluations identified areas where the programmes could be improved. They also identified several areas in which practices could be improved if they were addressed by programme providers, the youth justice sector and funding agencies.
These areas relate to:
- how providers are selected by funding agencies;
- the responsibilities of the programme providers;
- how funding agencies support providers;
- building the capacity of the providers;
- building the capacity of the youth justice sector; and
- enhancing inter-agency collaboration.