National Institute of Justice: Youth Mentoring and Evaluation

Overview

<p>Overview OJP is committed to advancing work that promotes civil rights and racial equity, increases access to justice, supports crime victims and individuals impacted by the justice system, strengthens community safety and protects the public from crime and evolving threats, and builds trust between law enforcement and the community.</p> <p>Mentoring is a prominent strategy for delinquency prevention and victimization recovery that offers at-risk youth structured support from older or more experienced mentors to provide positive role models and promote resilience. With this solicitation, NIJ seeks applications for rigorous youth mentoring research and evaluation projects to address one or more of the following research priorities:</p> <p><strong>1.</strong> <strong>Increasing the capacity for achieving broad, population-level impacts.</strong> NIJ is soliciting proposals that include rigorous impact evaluations of mentoring programs that are currently being implemented on a relatively large scale (e.g., on a regional or nationwide basis) or have strong potential for scalability. These evaluations need to be designed with representativeness of program sites and participants in mind to optimize generalizability.</p> <p><strong>2.</strong> <strong>Understanding how mentoring can advance change mechanisms promoting positive youth development.</strong> NIJ is inviting applicants to propose intensive investigation of the change mechanisms that are most important in driving youth outcomes. In particular, such studies may help identify effective behavior change strategies and delineate key targets for intervention.</p> <p><strong>3.</strong> <strong>Examining program participation long-term effects.</strong> To date, most mentoring evaluation research has been limited to measurement of relatively immediate or short-term outcomes. There is existing evidence that in some instances, positive program effects decay rapidly. NIJ is interested in proposals using rigorous methodologies which would assess whether mentoring programs produce sustained effects, particularly those impacting delinquency and associated key risk factors. Studies may leverage data already collected in evaluations of shorterterm outcomes to extend the scope and examine effects at later points in time.</p> <p><strong>4.</strong> <strong>Optimizing program effectiveness through iterative cycles of development paired with rigorous evaluation feedback.</strong> NIJ is interested in receiving proposals to evaluate iterative cycles of development and mentoring program refinement. As an example, the National Quality Mentoring System (NQMS) creates recognized standards and procedures for the operation of high-quality mentoring programs based on evidence and a process for continuous improvement within a program. It is important to consider which types of mentoring approaches are best suited for different purposes and targeted youth populations. </p> <p></p>