Career Development for At‐Risk Youth: A Program Evaluation

Abstract

At-risk populations pose a major challenge to the counseling profession. This article describes a career development program for at-risk youth and delineates both the process and the outcomes of a combined quantitative and qualitative program evaluation. The results suggest that at-risk youth can benefit significantly from this career development program. A combination of work and curricular experiences seemed to be effective with this population.The increase of minority individuals in the workforce will just about double the increase of Whites by the year 2000 (i.e., 28.8% as compared with 14.6% increase, respectively; Leong, 1991). Minorities in the labor force, however, are worse off today than they were two decades ago (Hoyt, 1989). The unemployment rate for Black high school graduates (40.6%) is more than triple that of Whites, with 34% ofBlack youth jobless as of 1985 (Hoyt, 1989). Moreover,minority youth manifest tentative orientations toward work, which is not surprising given their lack of positive work role models, lack of work-related experiences, limited educational opportunities, and restricted access to career and employment information (Watson & Stead, 1990). A recent national survey revealed that at-risk individuals viewed themselves as highly in need of career development services. Minorities were more likely than Whites to want more information about careers, to need assistance with occupational information and Teri A. Loughead is an associate professor ofcounseling and development at

Challenges to the Career Development of Urban Racial and Ethnic Minority Youth: Implications for Vocational Intervention

“…Although interventions have previously been developed to address challenges to the career development of urban racial and ethnic minority youth (e.g. . Loughead et al, 1995;D'Andrea & Daniels, 1992).…”

At‐Risk Urban High School Students' Commitment to Career Choices

“…Although a number of investigators have begun to examine the salience of the commitment to career choices process for college students (Betz & Serling, 1993;Blustein et al, 1989;Stead & Watson, 1992), there has been a lack of systematic research exploring the correlates to the commitment to career choices process for at-risk urban high school students. Relevant to at-risk urban high school students are the limited resources available to these adolescents (e.g., lower school funding), the stressors associated with being at risk (e.g., lower socioeconomic status; McWhirter, McWhirter, McWhirter, & McWhirter, 1995), and the lack of working role models (Loughead, Liu, & Middleton, 1995). Thus, successful navigation through the developmental tasks toward a stable commitment to career choices becomes formidable.…”

“…Thus, successful navigation through the developmental tasks toward a stable commitment to career choices becomes formidable. Although past studies have attempted to create career programs and interventions for this population (Lingg, 1995;Loughead et al, 1995), it seems critical to understand more clearly the career choices process for at-risk adolescents. Blustein et al (1989) defined the commitment to career choices process as consisting of two independent constructs or variables.…”

Analyzing the Attitude of Undergraduate Students Toward Poverty and Impoverished Persons: Does Social Work Education Make a Difference?

“…Consequently, the pretest-posttest design has become one "of the most common techniques to measure change" in social science research (Allen & Nimon, 2007, p. 28). It has been used by researchers to accumulate evidence of the efficacy of various practice interventions (Brooks, Nackerud, & Risler, 2001;Campbell, 1995;Capp, Thyer, & Bordnick, 1997;Loughead & Shu-Hui, 1995;Matsuba, Elder, Petrucci, & Marleau, 2008) and of social work education (Gasket & Vafeas, 2003;Weaver & Nackerud, 2005). The widespread use of the pretest-posttest design prompted Capp et al (1997) to opine that structuring studies with this approach "is a useful form of social work intervention research" (p. 65).…”