Mentoring Moms - A Program Evaluation

• In Event: Screening and Intervention for Early Childhood Prevention

Abstract

Much of crime prevention literature draws from the disease prevention model and is based on the developmental stages of crime: primary prevention (before crime happens), secondary prevention (by focusing on at-risk populations or potential opportunities) and tertiary prevention (after a crime has occurred). Progressively more researchers have turned to a definition of prevention that focuses interventions based on the population of interest: universal interventions (for the general population), selected interventions (for those considered at high risk) and indicated interventions (for those who have already demonstrated criminal behavior) (Tolan & Guerra 1994). This presentation hopes to delve on the literature at the intersection of secondary prevention, selected intervention as well as relationship and community factors by examining the program evaluation results of a community-based program called “Mentoring Moms”. Mentoring Moms is a program developed in 1995 by staff at the Volunteer Center in an attempt to address issues of child maltreatment and future delinquency. The need to provide education and support to parents and caregivers is at the core of being able to address these issues. Mentoring Moms fits this need wherein it connects a volunteer mother from the community to a mother of children out of these situations.

Author

• Sheetal Ranjan, William Paterson University