An evaluation of Teaching-Family (Achievement Place) group homes for juvenile offenders.
Teaching-Family group homes cut crime only while teens stay in the program; plan for long-term supports or expect relapse.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Wolchik et al. (1982) compared two kinds of group homes for teens who had broken the law. One home used the Teaching-Family model. The other homes used usual care. The team tracked new crimes while the youth lived in each place.
What they found
Kids in Teaching-Family homes committed fewer crimes during placement. After they left, the benefit vanished. The program worked only while youth stayed in the structured setting.
How this fits with other research
Macdonald et al. (1973) built the first Achievement Place token system. Wolchik et al. (1982) later tested a larger sample and still saw short-term gains. The pattern shows the idea keeps working inside the walls.
Leezenbaum et al. (2019) ran group contingencies in a detention center. Like A et al., they cut problem behavior while the program ran. Both studies warn: keep the support in place or lose the gain.
Higgins et al. (1992) found workshop training alone failed to help clients. Wolchik et al. (1982) did not measure staff skill after training, so the same risk applies. Teach staff where they work, not in a classroom.
Why it matters
If you run a group home, embed the Teaching-Family steps every day. Do not fade the point system or peer meetings before discharge. Plan step-down services so gains survive after youth walk out the door.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Juvenile crime is a serious problem for which treatment approach has been found to be reliably effective. This outcome evaluation assessed during and posttreatment effectiveness of Teaching-Family group home treatment programs for juvenile offenders. The evaluation included the original Achievement Place program, which was the prototype for the development of the Teaching-Family treatment approach, 12 replications of Achievement Place, and 9 comparison group home programs. Primary dependent measures were retrieved from court and police files and included number of alleged offenses, percentage of youths involved in those alleged offenses, and percentage of youths institutionalized. Other dependent measures were subjective ratings of effectiveness obtained from the program consumers, including the group home residents. The results showed difference during treatment favoring the Teaching-Family programs on rate of alleged criminal offenses, percentage of youths involved in those offenses, and consumer ratings of the programs. The consumer ratings provided by the youths and their school teachers were found to be inversely and significantly correlated with the reduction of criminal offenses during treatment. There were no significant differences during treatment on measures of noncriminal offenses (e.g., truancy, runaway, and curfew violations). In the posttreatment year, none of the differences between the groups was significant on any of the outcome measures. The results are discussed in terms of measurement and design issues in the evaluation of delinquency treatment programs and in relation to the evaluation; of Teaching-Family group homes by Richard Jones and his colleagues.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1982 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1982.15-1