A national evaluation of Safe Schools/Healthy Students: Outcomes and influences

The Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) Initiative has awarded over $2 billion in grants to more than 350 school districts in partnership with local mental health, law enforcement, and juvenile justice agencies. To estimate the impact of grantee characteristics, grant operations, and near-term out...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evaluation and program planning 2012-05, Vol.35 (2), p.293-302
Main Authors: Derzon, James H., Yu, Ping, Ellis, Bruce, Xiong, Sharon, Arroyo, Carmen, Mannix, Danyelle, Wells, Michael E., Hill, Gary, Rollison, Julia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Child Health
Coalitions
Federal Programs
Grants
Juvenile Justice
Large-scale evaluation
Law Enforcement
Mental Health
Natural variation
Outcome Measures
Partnerships in Education
Program Effectiveness
Program Evaluation
Regression analysis
School districts
School Safety
Substance Abuse
Substance use
Violence
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Summary:The Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) Initiative has awarded over $2 billion in grants to more than 350 school districts in partnership with local mental health, law enforcement, and juvenile justice agencies. To estimate the impact of grantee characteristics, grant operations, and near-term outcomes in reducing violence and substance use, promoting mental health, and enhancing school safety, logged odds ratios (LORs) were calculated contrasting Year 3 with Baseline performance from grantee-provided data on seven outcome measures. After comparing grantee performance across outcomes and outcomes across grantees, the LORs were entered as dependent variables in a series of meta-regressions in which grantee characteristics, grant operations, and near-term outcomes were tested after controlling for pre-grant characteristics. Findings indicate that the SS/HS Initiative significantly improved most outcomes, that within-grantee performance varied greatly by outcome, and that random-effects meta-regression appreciably decreased the variance available for modeling. The approach demonstrates that the SS/HS Initiative is effective and that locally collected performance data can be used to estimate grantee success in improving youth outcomes.
ISSN:0149-7189
1873-7870
DOI:10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2011.11.005