Young People in Focus

SECTION 3

3.9 Overall Summary of the Study

• 104 young people were included in the study sample, just over half were male and most were white. Just over half were aged between twelve and fourteen
• 61 young people completed ‘Before’ and ‘After’ questionnaires
• 21 out of the 104 young people (20%)‘dropped out’ or did not complete the intervention
• 8 young people were interviewed individually
• 119 parents were included in the study sample, most were White mothers. Just over half of the parents included in the sample were single and not living with a partner. Nearly 3/4 of parents were over 35 years old, with almost half being between 35 and 44 years old. Just under half the parents described themselves as working full time or part-time, just under half were ‘looking after family and home’
• 73 parents completed both ‘Before’ and ‘After’ questionnaires
• 10 parents took part in individual interviews – all were mothers
• 18 out of the 119 parents (15%) ‘dropped out’ or did not complete the intervention
• The vast majority of parents who completed the ‘Before’ questionnaires expected the programme to be helpful in addressing a range of issues including the young person’s behaviour, emotional wellbeing and self-esteem, school attendance and attainment and family relationships 

3.9.1 Experiences of young people who completed ‘Before’ and ‘After’ questionnaires:

• About ¾ of these young people expected and found the project to be very or fairly helpful
• Most of these young people were positive about aspects of the project finding it interesting, that staff knew what they were doing, understood and listened to young people – a few young people did not find these things
• Overall there was not much change for these young people at the end of the project – communication had slightly deteriorated, warmth from mother had slightly improved and conflict with mother had slightly reduced. The average numbers of these young people who had been involved in offending, anti-social behaviour and truancy had slightly reduced and the average numbers of times young people got in trouble in these ways had slightly reduced

3.9.2 Experiences of Parents who completed ‘Before’ and ‘After’ questionnaires:

• Nearly all these parents expected the programme to be ‘very’ or ‘fairly helpful’ and found it ‘very helpful’ or ‘fairly helpful’
• Most of these parents were positive about aspects of the project finding it interesting, that staff knew what they were doing, understood and listened to parents
• At the end of the intervention these parents reported significant improvements in communication with their child/young person, warmth towards their child young person, in their ability to supervise their child young person, in coping with their child young person. Conflict with their child/young person had improved somewhat

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