Utilizing Innovation: Preliminary Results of the Journey.do Evaluation

• In Event: Reassessing Risk, Engagement, and Innovation in Juvenile Probation Through the FORGE Framework

Abstract

Adolescence is a time of opportunity and growth for youth. As such, interventions should provide justice-involved youth opportunities to grow positive life skills that are personally relevant to the youth. However, approaches to juvenile rehabilitation may overemphasize youths’ deficits, or focus mainly on controlling the youth and keeping them safe. As an alternative, we discuss the Fostering Opportunities for Resiliency, Growth, and Empowerment (FORGE) model and its application within the social growth learning application, Journey.do. The integrated FORGE framework synthesizes best practices across juvenile justice and related fields, while Journey.do provides youth an online space to learn prosocial skills they find personally meaningful with similarly situated peers and autonomy over their own development and progress. Pre-post analyses of both detained and community-based youth assess the program’s impact across seven life areas. Overall, these preliminary findings suggest that youth in detention and on community supervision generally felt more positively in multiple life domains after using the platform. These findings suggest that online interventions could be helpful in how we seek to promote growth among justice-impacted young people.

Authors

• Justin Richardson, Arizona State University

• Adam Fine, Arizona State University