Assessments

Assessment programs are a Direct Service program - a program that meets with a youth a few times to conduct a singular service, in this case, to evaluate the youth to identify mental health and/or behavioral risks and needs.  Programs may use any number of different assessment tools to assess the risks and needs of the youth and provide recommendations for services for prevention and intervention.  Under Assessment programs are also Assessment Centers, which are a location where staff can meet with youth to complete the evaluations, and Referral Services, which are agencies that help youth and families find services within their communities based on their assessed needs.

Evaluating Truancy Programs

As part of our yearly evaluations for Community-based Juvenile Services Aid funded programs in fiscal year 2024, the JJI developed evaluation matrices to categorize important processes and outcomes for each program type evaluated. The following categories describe the important program processes and outcome indicators for assessment and referral services programs. These categories can be used to assess the standing of a program in terms of whether it is successfully applying best practices and meeting expectations or common goals for such programs. For additional resources or to access articles referenced below, contact the JJI at unojji@unomaha.edu.

Meeting Data Standards

Any program assessment must start by reviewing what data is available on processes and outcomes. Incomplete data or small sample sizes (i.e. few client cases) increase the risk of error in analysis. Shreffler and Huecker (2023) describe what Type I and II errors are – with high risks for error we might fail to identify a positive impact that’s occurring or falsely state the program was effective when it wasn’t. Small sample sizes run the risk of an outlier (one or two cases with unique, or very low/high values in an outcome) skewing the results.

Processes: Serving a Representative Population

ASSESSMENT Processes: USING A VALIDATED TOOL

REFERRALS Processes: REFERRING YOUTH TO APPROPRIATE SERVICES

ASSESSMENT OUTCOMES: DIVERTING YOUTH AWAY FROM THE SYSTEM

REFERRAL OUTCOMES: YOUTH ATTENDANCE IN REFERRED SERVICES

Outcomes: Reducing Future System Involvement

Additional resources

Resources for Assessment & Referral programs

Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) provides a list of community resources, from financial assistance to parenting support, for Nebraskan communities.

The Nebraska Crime Commission has published several guides and trainings for the Nebraska Screen and Assessment Tool (NSAT), an assessment tool developed specifically for Nebraska Diversion programs. This pamphlet provides a brief guide and background for the NSAT.

OJJDP publishes literature reviews on what works for juvenile delinquency prevention and intervention, including for juvenile risk/needs assessments.

This review describes the background of risk/needs assessments (i.e., the Risk-Need-Responsivity Model) and common approaches to administering assessments.

Various guidebooks for implementing juvenile assessments in regular juvenile justice processes can be found online.