An RCT of Fostering Healthy Futures mentoring program for teens in the child welfare system recently reported final results. Quick take: High-quality RCT finds a sizable 14 percentage-point decrease in juvenile justice involvement over approximately 2 years - an encouraging result, though not definitive due to lack of statistical significance.

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Program:

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• Fostering Healthy Futures for Teens (FHF‑T) is a 9‑month intensive mentoring program for 8th and 9th grade students who have open child welfare cases due to maltreatment within their families. The mentors are graduate students in social work or psychology.

 

Study Design:

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• The study sample comprised 245 youth in the Denver area, randomly assigned to treatment (FHF-T) vs control (child welfare services as usual). Based on our careful review, this was a well-conducted RCT (e.g., baseline balance, low attrition, prespecified primary analyses).

 

Findings:

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• At approximately two years following study entry, the study found a 14 percentage-point reduction in the rate of juvenile justice involvement (i.e., court charges) -- 13% of treatment group youth had a court charge versus 27% of control group youth. The study also found an 8 percentage-point reduction in the rate of youth self-reported delinquency in the past year (57% treatment vs 65% control).

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• However, neither of these effects was statistically significant (p=0.19 & 0.32 for the above two primary outcomes, respectively). For that reason, the results are encouraging due to the sizable effects, but not yet definitive as they could potentially be due to chance.  

 

Comment:

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• Given the promising findings, this program would be a strong candidate for a replication RCT with a larger sample to hopefully confirm the results.

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• Disclosure: Arnold Ventures, our former employer, funded this study.