Chicago Summer Job Programs
One of the more promising areas of inquiry at the intersection of education and crime reduction is “soft skills.” In education, it might be traits like persistence, in the; in crime-reduction, it might be “non-cognitive” skills like self-control, as in the from the cognitive-behavioral-therapy approach applied through the Becoming a Man initiative. They’re two sides of the same coin—explicitly teaching life skills that kids are expected to pick up implicitly as they grow up.A recent study, reminiscent of the study—and by the same lead author, the University of Pennsylvania’s Sara Heller—brings very positive findings: a 43 percent reduction in violent crime among disadvantaged high school youth over a 16-month span, well after the skills program ended. And it suggests that there are different, equally effective routes to imparting those skills.Heller’s study, examined One Summer Plus, a summer-jobs program open to students in high-violence Chicago public high schools. On average, the kids were 16 going on 17, with a C average, and having missed 29 days of school. Twenty-two percent had been arrested. In short, not lost kids, but “on the cusp,” to use Heller’s words.They were put through a straightforward summer jobs program: students got paid minimum wage to work engaging jobs—camp counselor, aldermanic assistant, community-garden work—with the assistance of a job mentor. In other words, it’s not just digging a hole to fill it back in.“Youth are smart,” Heller says.
“They know when you’re making work for them just for the sake of doing work. And you must imagine that that’s a lot less rewarding, and making you feel a lot less responsible and proud of what you’re doing, than if you’re really acting as a camp counselor and a role model for younger youth.” The students worked part-time for eight weeks over the summer.But the study was given an interesting twist. Some of the students split their jobs with a “social-emotional learning” curriculum, along the lines of the Becoming a Man program.
Summer Jobs For 15 Year Olds In Chicago
In essence, the study set up something of a competition, between a straightforward summer-job program and one mixed with explicit instruction in life and emotional skills.And they both worked. Among the treatment group, violent-crime arrests fell by 3.95 arrests per 100 youth, and the difference between the two treatment groups was almost nil. Plus the effects were strongest five to 11 months after the program ended, suggesting a lasting effect, at least in the medium-term—and that the results were not merely the result of keeping them off the streets for a couple months.“The fact that those two versions of the program have about the same effect, suggests to me that there may be interchangeable strategies for having this kind of impact on youths for teaching them the skills they need to avoid violent crime,” Heller says.