Cost-Effective Violence Prevention through Targeted Family Interventions

A MARGINAL COST ANALYSIS OF A BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF AMERICA YOUTH MENTORING PROGRAM: NEW EVIDENCE USING STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

The objective of this study was to evaluate the cost of serving one additional youth in the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBS) program. We used a marginal cost approach which offers a significant improvement over previous methods based on average total cost estimates. The data consisted of eight years of monthly records from January 2008 to August 2015 obtained from program administrators at one BBBS site in the Mid-Atlantic. Results show that the BBBS marginal cost to serve one additional youth was $80 per mentor-month of BBBS mentoring (irrespective of program type). The cost to offer services for the average match duration of 19 months per marginal added youth was $1,503. The marginal costs per treated program participant in school-based versus community-based programs were $1,199 and $3,301, respectively. Marginal cost estimates are in the range of youth mentoring programs with significant returns on investment but are substantially higher than prior BBBS unit cost estimates reported using less robust estimation methods. This cost analysis can better inform policy makers and donors on the cost of expanding the scale of local BBBS programs as well as suggest opportunities for cost savings.

Trajectories of Adolescent Aggression and Family Cohesion: The Potential to Perpetuate or Ameliorate Political Conflict

Correlations between intergroup violence and youth aggression are often reported. Yet longitudinal research is needed to understand the developmental factors underlying this relation, including between-person differences in within-person change in aggression through the adolescent years. Multilevel modeling was used to explore developmental and contextual influences related to risk for youth aggression using 4 waves of a prospective, longitudinal study of adolescent/mother dyad reports (N = 820; 51% female; 10-20 years old) in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a setting of protracted political conflict. Experience with sectarian (i.e., intergroup) antisocial behavior predicted greater youth aggression; however, that effect declined with age, and youth were buffered by a cohesive family environment. The trajectory of aggression (i.e., intercepts and linear slopes) related to more youth engagement in sectarian antisocial behavior; however, being female and having a more cohesive family were associated with lower levels of youth participation in sectarian acts. The findings are discussed in terms of protective and risk factors for adolescent aggression, and more specifically, participation in sectarian antisocial behavior. The article concludes with clinical and intervention implications, which may decrease youth aggression and the perpetuation of intergroup violence in contexts of ongoing conflict.