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This
executive summary contains highlights from the final evaluation
report for the San José Bringing Everyone’s Strengths
Together (BEST)
Program for FY 2004-2005. The full report describes
the effort, effect,
performance, and results from this year’s funding of 24
grantees in
providing services to reduce gang violence in
San José. This report is
organized around the performance logic model
evaluation design used to
evaluate BEST over the last fourteen years.
The
evaluation measures:
Effort, which documents the funds spent, children served, staff
hired,
strategies conducted, amount of services provided,
and the cost per
hour for services delivered.
Effect because of funded services, which documents youth
customer’s and their parents’ satisfaction with
the services delivered
and the effectiveness of the services to produce
desired changes in
BEST customers that are for the better.
Performance, which measures how each of the grantees did in
meeting the BEST performance goals for effort
and effect.
Results,
which come from the effort, effect, and performance of the
whole community of San José to raise healthy children
to have the
opportunity to succeed in their lives. Results
are reported in this
final evaluation report .
Under
the leadership of San José Mayor Ron Gonzales,
the City
Council continued its support of the Mayor’s Gang Prevention
Task
Force (MGPTF) and the Bringing Everyone’s Strengths Together
(BEST)
Program for Fiscal Year 2004-2005. Their support
relied on research
that showed that the BEST Program and the Mayor’s Gang
Prevention
Task Force continues to provide public value.
Mayor Gonzales and the
City Council have continued to focus the BEST
Program on maximizing
school success, increasing school safety, reducing
violence and gangs,
and measuring short and long-term results. As
such, Cycle XIV of
the BEST Program used an evaluation design that
integrated the
previously used logic model with a performance-based
evaluation
system. The success of the San José BEST program has
been due,
in part, to the program’s focus on harder to serve youth
and youth
who are out of the mainstream of most community
services. The
City of San José should be commended for not giving
up on some
of their most valuable assets — youth out of the mainstream.
In
the last fourteen years, the BEST Program has
expended a total of
$26.6 million in City and $25.9 million in matching
funds to deliver
9 million hours of direct service in order to
reduce gang activity and
violence. The BEST Program and MGPTF should be
regarded as one of
the reasons why the City of San José is the safest big
city in America.
The
BEST Program, which is coordinated by the MGPTF,
has implemented a comprehensive plan that focuses
on providing a
continuum of services: prevention, intervention,
and suppression
services. This plan addresses the problems of
youth violence and
gang activities over time. The strategic goals
of the Mayor’s Gang
Prevention Task Force (MGPTF) are as follows: Strategic Goal 1
Develop and implement an “asset-based” service
delivery system
aimed at connecting, coordinating, and leveraging
intervention
resources.
Strategic Goal 2
Create and implement a standard, citywide Crisis Response Protocol
aimed at keeping schools, community centers,
and neighborhoods
safe.
Strategic Goal 3
Develop and implement a comprehensive capacity-building strategy
aimed at equipping Task Force members with the
skills and resources
necessary to re-direct Youth.
Strategic Goal 4
Create an education and awareness campaign regarding the risk
factors affecting youth and the resources available
to them.
Strategic Goal 5
Integrate the City of San José MGPTF Intervention Strategy
with local,
state, and national initiatives.
The mission of the MGPTF is stated as follows:
“We exist to ensure safe and healthy opportunities for
San Jose’s
youth, free of gangs and crime, to realize their
hopes and dreams,
and become successful and productive in their
homes, schools, and
neighborhoods. ”
The vision of the MGPTF is described as follows:
“Safe and healthy youth connected
to their families, schools,
communities, and their futures. ”
Headline Accomplishments The BEST services have continued to accomplish the following:
**Maintain high rates of customer satisfaction.
**Keep costs
efficient.
**
Boost the effectiveness and quality of
their services.
**
Provided over nine million hours
of direct service to San José
youth and parents since 1992.
BEST accomplishments over the last
fourteen years Over
the last fourteen
years BEST grantees
provided 9 million
hours of direct
service to youth in
San José to assist
them to connect to
home, school, and
community.
Headline Results
The following population results indicate
that San José citizens
working together have accomplished: Indicators that have turned the curve in a good direction:
San José High
School CPI Graduation Rate has improved 18%
since 1999.
San
José School
District API Scores have improved by
8% since 1999.
San
José rate
of violent crime per 100,000 youth has
decreased by 53% since 1994.
There has been a 91% decrease in youth referred to CYA
since
1966.
There has been a 59% decrease in youth admitted into
Juvenile
Hall (J.H.) since 1995.
There has been a 45% decrease in number of youth of color
admitted to J.H. since 2001.
There has been a 30% decrease in youth admitted to Juvenile
Ranches since 2001. |
STRATEGIC PLAN 2005-07 BEST
grantees made a major change in service delivery this year for
the MGPTF to focus on intervention services
The new Strategic Plan calls for the
BEST Grantees to focus on providing
gang involved youth with intervention services.
This is a change
from prior years when BEST’s continuum consisted of prevention
and intervention programs. This change focused BEST Grantees on
providing high risk youth with intervention services,
which, generally,
cost more than prevention services. New partnerships
and capacities
are being formed and developed to focus on this
new mission for BEST
Grantees.
The following is an excerpt from the new strategic plan, A
Call to
Action - Reclaiming our Youth - The Mayor’s Gang Prevention
Task Force
(MGPTF) 2005-2007 Strategic Work Plan. “MGPTF is a collaborative
effort involving private citizens, city, county,
state, local community based
organizations, youth commissioners, schools,
parents, faith
community, and local law enforcement. During
many hours of
meetings and work sessions, stakeholders engaged
in candid and
impassioned conversations about the best approaches
to rescue youth
from gang involvement and criminal activity.
The most enduring
memory of those sessions was the genuine commitment
to do what
is best for San José’s youth made by so many diverse
members of the
community. With the leadership and support of
Mayor Ron Gonzales,
these many contributors united behind a plan to
positively intervene in the lives of its youth – to ‘reclaim’ them
from anti-social pulls that
have disconnected them from their families, schools,
communities,
and their futures. This plan for the future combines
the latest research
on successful approaches to healthy youth development
with a new
strategy to provide more intervention services
to gang-involved
and disconnected youth. Stakeholders made a clear
commitment
to reclaiming San José’s youth by getting them
back into schools,
reconnecting them with their families and communities,
providing
them with a supportive and healthy environment
to learn and grow,
and redirect them toward more pro-social behaviors.
Ultimately,
we envision youth who maintain a sense of responsibility
for their
actions and accountability to themselves and
others. ”
“For the fourth consecutive year, the Kansas-based research
and
publishing company Morgan Quitno anointed San
José, California as
the “safest big city in America.” In his press release
following this
announcement, San José Mayor Ron Gonzales noted: ‘Keeping
our
residents and neighborhoods safe is the result
of our continuing
investments in an excellent, well-trained and
well-equipped police
force, a strong commitment to crime prevention,
and an effective
partnership with all the people in our community
to focus on
solutions that protect public safety.’ --Mayor Ron Gonzales,
City of
San Jose (11.22.04)”
“The City of San José attributes much of its success
in remaining the
safest big city in America” to the work of the Mayor’s
Gang Prevention
Task Force (MGPTF). The MGPTF, one of San José’s
leading grass-roots
initiatives, addresses issues of gang violence,
and provides support
to gang-involved youth and their families. The
MGPTF model brings
together the appropriate individuals and organizations
to discuss
community safety issues. The MGPTF model reinforces
the notion
that collaborative efforts, spanning a broad
spectrum of community
partners, helps to ensure that a large number
of stakeholders accept
responsibility and accountability for the safety,
health, and welfare
of its youth, families, and communities. Under
the auspices and
leadership of Mayor Ron Gonzales, the City of
San José, the MGPTF,
and its partners have renewed their commitment
to ensuring the
overall safety and health of all the city’s youth, as
well to help keep
San José the ‘safest big city in America. Reclaiming
our Youth - The
Mayor’s Gang Prevention Task Force (MGPTF) 2005-2007 Strategic
Work Plan reflects this commitment. ‘ (p.2-4)
San
José continues
to
be the
safest big city
in America. |
The MGPTF and its members are continuing
to coordinate the entire continuum of services from early
care to suppression for San José. The BEST Grantees
this year are focusing their efforts and effects on
intervention services for high risk and gang
involved youth.
Amount of Effort Accomplished Over Last Fourteen Years Each
year, BEST funded Service Providers have continued to expand
their partnerships with other public and private partners
to
increase the amount of matching funds they use
to expand on their BEST funded services. This was the first
year in many that the
percent of matching funds declined. This decline
indicates that the new focus on intervention
may require providers to reach out to
some new partners and initiatives. BEST funding
this year is 24% below its historic level of
match. Refer to pdf for chart data.
Why is this important?
Municipalities across
the country are struggling
with bleak financial
circumstances.
The ability to leverage
city grant funds is
becoming increasingly
important. The
BEST grantees have
to renew their effort
to raise funds from
private foundations,
corporate sponsors,
other government
agencies, and other
donors to match their
BEST grant.
Why is this important?
BEST
Grantees were asked
to serve and focus
more of their services
on Gang Involved
Youth. These youth
are harder to work
with than the some of
the youth they have
worked with in the
past. BEST Grantees
are continuing to
establish new partnerships
with other
groups and initiatives
to work with our gang
involved youth. Evaluators
are impressed
with the growth in
capacity in just the
one year. Refer to pdf for chart data.
BEST overall cost per hour for intervention
programs increased from last year by sixteen cents per hour.
BEST
Grantees should be able to
lower this cost per hour in the next year as
they build capacity to work with some of the
city’s most
challenging youth.
Effect—BEST-Funded Services are
Producing Change for the Better in their Children
and Youth Customers For the second straight year,
service providers surpassed the 60% target for
service productivity. Service
productivity is defined as the
growth in new skills, knowledge, and positive
behaviors as a result of the youth’s participation in
services – the measure of effectiveness.
Effectiveness has improved by 19% from last year.
Effectiveness is also measured by customer satisfaction,
which continued to
remain high and improved from last year for both
participating youth and their parents. Refer
to pdf for chart 4.
EFFICIENCY and EFFECTIVENESS
Why is this Important?
San
José taxpayers should
have some assurance
that they are getting
a fair deal from BEST
grantees. The cost per
hour of direct service
allows taxpayers to
understand how much
they are paying for
services. Focusing on
intervention services
has caused BEST
grantees’ cost per hour
to rise, partly because
prevention programs,
which cost less to offer,
are no longer in the mix
of BEST services.
Why is this Important?
The cost per hour, or efficiency,
must always be interpreted in the context of
effectiveness to determine the value of the
services provided by BEST Grantees. Effectiveness
is a measure of how youth served are
better off because of BEST funded services.
BEST uses reports from youth, their parents,
and the staffs serving the youth to determine
what new skills and behaviors have been
attained or improved. Chart 4 shows the percentage
of targeted changes youth customers
indicated that they achieved because of the
BEST funded services. They reported a 19%
growth in effectiveness from last year. Refer to
pdf for chart information.
FIRST HALF YEAR HIGHLIGHTS
Highlights of BEST funded
service for this year—FY 2004-2005Evaluators
picked eleven highlights of this year’s effort,
effect and performance of BEST Grantees.
Effort of BEST Funded Services for this
Year |
1)
BEST funded 24 contracts for $4.1 million in
total funds (match and city funds) and $2.4
million City of San José
funds to serve San José youths and families. 2)
BEST leveraged City of San José funds
by 73 percent. This leverage needs to improve
in the future
by working to
join new partnerships and initiatives to
expand the impact of the BEST dollars.
3) BEST funded grantees served 4,587 unduplicated youth and
parent customers with 316,394 hours of direct
service.
Each unduplicated customer received an average
of 69 hours of service and $895 worth of services and care.
4) The average cost per hour of service was $12.97. This cost
should come down next year as agencies build
capacity
and find ways to conduct more groups and behavioral
activities.
Effect of BEST Funded Services for this Year |
1) Youth customers gave BEST services an 88 percent satisfaction
rating and parents gave services an 88 percent
satisfaction rating - both are very good satisfaction
rates.
2) BEST funded services were effective in producing positive
changes in almost three-fourths (73%) of the
targeted
behaviors and skills in their youth customers.
Parents indicated positive changes in 79 percent
of the targeted
behaviors and skills. BEST Grantees, overall,
had the highest service productivity scores measured
to date.
3) Service quality, a measure of the
consistency of services delivered to San José youth
customers, has improved by
25 percent when compared to last year.
Performance of BEST Funded Services
for this Year |
1) This year, 75 percent of grantees met their
contracted service delivery plan for the year
and 75 percent of grantees
spent their contracted BEST grantee and matching
funds.
2) This year, 96 pecent of grantees met the BEST goal for children
and youth satisfaction rate of 70 percent.
3) This year, 83 percent of grantees met their BEST goal for
Youth Asset Development Service Productivity
and 88
percent of the grantees met their Grantee Specified
Service Productivity Goals.
4) This year, 96 percent met their service quality goal and
71 percent of grantee selected questions met
the reliability
performance goal.
The BEST Evaluation Team recommends the following:
The City of San Jose should continue
to contract with qualified providers to implement portions
of the Mayor’s San José Gang
Prevention Task
Force Strategic Work Plan through BEST Cycle
XIV funding.
1.) In this year’s cycle, BEST has renewed its commitment
to
serving youth that are not currently being served
by schools
and community programs. Evaluators commend San
José for
renewing its commitment to serving high-risk
and ganginvolved
youth. This year their was a 200% increase in
the
percent of gang involved youth served.
The historical strength of the BEST
Program has been its ability
to compete with gangs to win over the minds of
our youth.
BEST Service Providers have historically been
more successful at
recruiting these youth. A youth who is not involved
in school and
community programs is more likely to be a gang
recruit. BEST
Service Providers need to continue to find ways
to convince these
youth that they can have successful involvement
in community
services and education. BEST needs to continue
to assist youth
to have hope for the future, to set goals for
their success in life,
to have high expectations and to meaningfully
participate in
school, home, and the community. Most importantly,
BEST
should continue to provide new caring, structuring,
pro-social
adults in the lives of youth.
2.) The Mayor’s Gang Prevention
Task Force should continue to work
with school districts to find methods of recovering
Average
Daily Attendance (ADA) funds that are lost due
to drop-out or
truant youth. The closure of Community Schools
operated by the
Santa Clara County Office of Education and the
overall decline of
alternative school slots of 32% in the last few
years indicates that
we need more alternatives and choices than the
comprehensive
High Schools where our high-risk youth have failed
in the past.
Evaluators indicate in this report the large
number of youth
who could use alternative schools and transition
schools to get
youth ready to function in comprehensive schools.
The current
economic climate with the need to reduce local
government
spending is another reason to team BEST Service
Providers with
School Districts to recapture lost ADA funds
that are given back to
the State of California and reconnect youth to
attending school.
Evaluators estimate that San José lost 24 million dollars
a year in
unused funding due to reported youth who have
dropped out of
school.
We continue to go in the wrong direction to capture the ADA
funds for these very hard-to-serve youth. Our
school districts
have decided that it costs too much money to
serve our highrisk
youth, and they are leaving them on the street
for each
community to find a way to socialize and educate
them. This
strategy is very short-sighted and will only
increase the number
of youth who choose a criminal, anti-social mindset
and behavior.
As a community we need to find a way to work
with our school
districts to assist them in building small schools
in the community
that can meet the needs of these youth with vocational
and GED
type programs. The recent expansion of Community
Day Schools
and Charter schools, is a hopeful evelopment
and should be
further expanded.
We cannot continue with the short-sighted
practice of balancing our state budget by abandoning
our youth who
are not succeeding
in school. The long-term costs for society will
go higher. Building
new prisons is much more expensive than building
the capacity to
educate our youth with the greatest needs. Retired
Judge Ambler
said it best when he stated that if you can’t read - go
to jail.
Why is this Important?
A recent study from the National
Center of Juvenile Justice reveals
that the cost to society for each youth
that drops out of school to become
involved in a life of crime and drug
abuse is $1.7 million.
Furthermore, a 2002 study from
the Center on Juvenile and Criminal
Justice (CJCJ) stated that the
recidivism rate of California Youth
Authority (CYA) parolees is 91%,
indicating that communities must
rely on local solutions to rehabilitate
and change the behaviors of troubled
youth,2 before they penetrate so far
into the justice system.
4.) The BEST Program and MGPTF should
develop a youth leadership component of the BEST program,
allowing youth
to give input on services
delivered at their school sites. This youth leadership
development should
include youth as members of the BEST Evaluation
Team. School sites
where BEST services are delivered should establish
a BEST leadership
group that oversees services and issues related
to school safety and BEST
services. The MGPTF should consider requesting
youth input from each of
the youth leadership groups. The youth leadership
groups at each school
site can serve as a link between BEST Service
Providers and San Jose Parks,
Recreation, and Neighborhood Development Emergency
Response School
Safety teams.
5. The MGPTF should continue to review
their operational policies and
procedures to ensure that the MGPTF continues
as a forum to take action
by mobilizing the community to reduce juvenile
crime and violence. The
MGPTF should continue to review membership requirements,
problemsolving
strategies across the continuum of services,
agreements to end
institutional silence about problems, and collaboration
strategies. In
order to be effective, all service providers
should feel free to raise issues
without MGPTF partners taking the problem statement
personally or as an
attack on their efforts. For example, as a community
we need to be able
to talk about school drop out rates as supportive
partners of our schools.
Whatever the challenge or issue, the MGPTF and
its partners should
collectively own the problem and the solution.
By working together we
can try alternatives that might allow us to assist
youth to set new dreams
for their future. Partners do not always have
to agree, but we do need
frank discussions of problems.
7. The MGPTF’s Policy Team and
Technical Team should develop a method to
involve youth and parents in the work of the
task force. This might mean
that once a quarter the Technical Team holds
a meeting in the evening
with each member bringing a youth and parent
to add their valuable
insights into the discussions and actions of
the task force.
BEST Evaluation Design and
Implementation
of Recommendations |
The success of the Cycle XIV BEST Evaluation System suggests
that all BEST
Service Providers should continuie to improve
this system. The Evaluators are
recommending the following to ensure the successful
implementation of the
BEST Preformance Logic Model: 1. All BEST Providers should begin to measure intermediate
results of their
programs. We need to be able to tell taxpayers
the impact we and our
partners are having on the status of our BEST
customers.
2. The Evaluators recommend that the BEST Program expand the
demographic database with status information
about when the customer
began and ended service and their beginning and
ending status.
3. Many of the BEST grantees need to increase the sample size
of youth and
parents surveyed.
The following are some additional school-related areas
that deserve support:
a) Schools and other community institutions need assistance
in
building the capacity to work with youth that
are out of the
educational mainstream. The MGPTF should continue
to support
the efforts of the Mayor of San José to connect youth
disconnected
from our community.
b) Schools need assistance to focus on reading as a measure
of
school success. Research indicates that if youth
are reading
at grade level by 3rd grade, they are much less
likely to end up
with antisocial mindsets and life-styles that
place them at risk of
incarceration. The MGPTF should support the major
efforts being
mounted by all San José school districts to improve the
reading
abilities of elementary, middle, and high school
students.
c) The MGPTF should continue to support
the efforts of the Superior
Court’s Special Committee on Education of Youth of the
Juvenile
Court. This Special Committee will continue its
work to ensure
enrollment and/or specialized education services
to high-risk
youth that are wards and dependents of the court.
d) The MGPTF and BEST Service Providers should continue delivering
a special presentation for School Boards on how
they can focus
additional resources to assist schools to better
serve high-risk
youth.
e) The MGPTF should continue to support
the Greater San José
Alternative Education Collaborative that it helped
develop under
the leadership of United Way of Silicon Valley.
f) The MGPTF should continue to collaborate with San Jose school
districts in developing Community Day Schools
and other
alternatives for high-risk youth including transition
schools
for youth to get ready to go back into the comprehensive
high
schools.
g) The MGPTF should continue to support the work of the Santa
Clara County Truancy Abatement Collaborative
h) The MGPTF should support the expanded
truancy work of the Status Offender Services Collaborative.
i) The MGPTF should continue to support
the San José Smart
Start – Learning Ready Centers.
j) The MGPTF should continue to support
San José After
School
Programs.
3. The MGPTF and BEST Service Providers
should continue to be
active collaborating partners in the Santa Clara
County Juvenile
Detention Reform (JDR) effort. JDR works to lock
up the youth
who constitute a real danger to our communities,
not the youth
who have angered an adult. If we do not lock
up all the youth who
break the law, then we need to make sure that
they are in school
and are involved in BEST-type intervention services.
Finding the
funds to provide services in the community for
these youth will
be a major challenge for our community in this
time of budget
cuts. A major source of funds for intervention
services could be
recapturing school funds for youth who are not
succeeding or not
going to our schools.
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