When Chicago teens and students face trouble and need help, schools can connect them with mentorship programs like Becoming a Man. If they’ve run into trouble with the law, there are programs available through the Juvenile Detention Center.
But what about teens in the middle – those who may not have run into legal trouble, but are withdrawing from their regular school community?
“For young people engaged in institutions, we had these really promising practices, but we know that there’s this trajectory of young people and some were starting to disengage,” said Kelly Hallberg, scientific director, Inclusive Economy Lab. “And this program … felt like that perfect sweet spot of engaging young people who were maybe at heightened risk for criminal legal system engagement.”
That program Hallberg referred to is Choose to Change, a six-month intervention that combines “near-peer” mentorship and cognitive behavioral therapy to help steer teens away from violence and get them back on a more successful track.
The overall goal of the program is to help reduce youth violence – and research has found it’s led to positive, lasting impacts on that front – but more than that, Choose to Change aims to help teens rethink how they treat and respond to potentially volatile situations.
“I learned how to walk away and not act on everything and make a permanent decision on a temporary situation,” said Nour Abdul-Razzak, research director with UChicago’s Inclusive Economy Lab, reciting a quote from a previous Choose to Change participant.
UChicago researchers found that in the two years after entering Choose to Change, participants were 31 percent less likely to be arrested. After three years, they were 23 percent less likely to be arrested.
While in the program itself, the likelihood of a participant being arrested for a violent crime fell by almost half and within two years, they remain about 40 percent less likely to be involved in a violent arrest.
“The fact that the impacts from a six-month program are lasting up to two years really suggests that those changes in how young people are approaching these situations, they’re making a lasting change in how they’re operating in the world,” Hallberg said.
Choose to Change has also been found to increase school attendance by one full week and reduce school misconduct by 33 percent following a randomized control trial UChicago ran from 2015 to 2019.
Those findings were made through a randomized control trial UChicago ran from 2015 to 2019.
Identifying Kids in Need of Help
But before teens can enroll in the program, they have to be identified. To do so, Hallberg said program organizers utilize “relentless” recruitment strategies.
Advocates first try to reach potential enrollees at their schools. If that fails, they’ll try to find them at their homes, visiting over and over if need be. If that too is unsuccessful, they’ll rely on community contacts to try and find them.
Program leaders rely on referrals from schools or outreach centers before advocates from the nonprofit Youth Advocate Programs set up an initial meet. Abdul-Razzak said those advocates don’t go in focused on whatever issues led to the meeting in the first place, but rather what Choose to Change can do to help them going forward.
“That reframing of what their past experiences may have been or what they’ve done is such an important part and a theme that runs throughout Choose to Change,” she said. “They really try to engage young people with this lens of, it’s not what you’ve done, it’s what you could potentially do, and maybe you’ve made mistakes, but we can work through that and help you learn the skills to do more.”
Participants in the program are thirteen to eighteen years old. Choose to Change typically served around 100 youth at a time in its initial pilot program, but those numbers are growing thanks to investment and expansion from Chicago Public Schools.
“It’s something we believe in,” said Jadine Chou, the district’s former chief of safety and security. “It’s something that has helped us. … This program has found a way – inside and outside of school – to meet our young people’s needs.”
According to Chou, since CPS began implementing Choose to Change in 2018, more than 4,000 district students have taken part.
She said the district has targeted students who are the “hardest to reach” – those who remain enrolled but may have spotty attendance records or are struggling outside of school – and rely on referrals from school-based staff like teachers and principals.
CPS now serves anywhere from 500-800 kids in Choose to Change per year, but because some teens are harder to identify and locate than others, recruiting doesn’t happen all at the same time. But once they’re signed up, Chou said principals and school leaders have almost universally seen significant improvements.
“Often these are young people who have been involved in infractions,” Chou said, “and by the time they have finished with the six months – and even earlier than that – they see very positive outcomes where these students are really leaders within the school.”
How It Came Together
The program, which is spearheaded by nonprofits Youth Advocate Programs and Brightpoint, was born from a 2015 design program launched by UChicago’s Crime Lab to crowdsource youth violence prevention interventions.
The nonprofits pitched the idea of combining “near-peer” mentoring, which connects participants with people who are just older and have gone through similar experiences, with counselor-led, trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy.
Hallberg said that unique combination was of real interest to the Crime Lab and researchers believed it was worth assessing further.
Participants start by growing a relationship over the first few weeks with their advocate and setting their own program model for the next six months.
“It’s very individualized,” Abdul-Razzak said. “If the young person wants to get a part-time job, that’s one of their goals. If they have some criminal legal issues they need to deal with, that will be one of their goals. If their family needs support, that would be part of that plan.”
After that, they’re introduced to weekly cognitive behavioral therapy sessions focusing on how trauma has impacted them, what their triggers are and why they respond the way they do to certain situations. From there, they workshop different skillsets to teach them how to react more appropriately when facing those circumstances.
Hallberg said that initial relationship-building is crucial to getting the participants to buy in to the therapy.
“They tell us at first, like, ‘You want me to do what?’” she said. “But then when they hear from this trusted adult who they develop a relationship with, they’re more willing to engage and share their thoughts and feelings and experiences.”
Participants spend an hour a week in those therapy sessions, but during the six to seven hours they spend with their advocates each week outside those sessions, the teens are able to practice what they’re taught.
And many participants stay in touch with their advocates well after their time in Choose to Change comes to an end. Abdul-Razzak and Hallberg held focus groups with teens following their time in the program, many of whom highlighted the importance of having an adult in their life and the guidance they received.
“These mentors were available like 24/7 during those six months,” Abdul-Razzak said. “We’ve heard stories of, like, if someone was shot and ended up in the hospital, it was their mentor who was there – as well as the young person’s family – but the mentor was also there next to them making sure that they got all the help that they needed.”
