The Restore Program uses a community, strength-based intervention strategy designed to decrease delinquency while helping juveniles to recognize their competencies. We use a multi-faceted, community strength-based intervention strategy (A.I.M.A.T). Assess the youth’s strength and unmet needs. Implement strategies to access resources to support and/or enhance their strengths, and fulfill their unmet needs. Monitor progress. Adjust for unforeseen challenges. Terminate the advocate involvement to allow the delinquent youth to practice self advocacy.
Intervention activities are carried out by volunteers who are trained and supervised. The aim of our structured training program is to help volunteers develop skills pertinent for working with adolescents and their families. The careful monitoring of each volunteer’s progress and grasp of intervention techniques promotes the training of competent volunteer/service providers.
The training component of the Restore Program provides volunteers with knowledge and skills in two major intervention strategies: 1 Interpersonal Problem-Solving, using the technique of behavioral contracting and 2.Community Advocacy. The Interpersonal Problem-Solving approach is used to help improve and strengthen relationships between the youth and important people in his/her life. It is used to help the youth establish more constructive and positive relationships at home with parents and/or siblings, through the application of effective communication and negotiation skills. The community advocacy approach helps the youth identify and gain access to various community resources that she/he is interested in. Some of the more common advocacy areas are employment, education, and constructive recreational activities. In addition to learning these two intervention approaches, volunteers are trained in skills associated with the four major stages that each case moves through. These skills include: administering a strength-based/needs assessment, implementation of the specific intervention strategies, developing monitoring charts for goals completion and troubleshooting, and termination strategies which are directed at shifting the major responsibilities for carrying out further positive changes to the youth and his/her family.
Once assigned, the volunteer meets with their youth weekly for eighteen consecutive weeks, working directly with or on behalf of his/her youth. Volunteers are instructed to apply the material and skills learned during training to their specific case. The volunteers’ role becomes that of a change agent and advocate for their youth. They work closely with the youth and his/her family in identifying goal areas as targets for intervention and assist them in accomplishing these goals. The intervention plan for each case is individually tailored to meet the needs of that youth and family. For instance, emphasis of some volunteers’ intervention activities might involve teaching the youth and his/her parents effective problem-solving and communication skills that will enable them to negotiate and solve problems in their relationships. The intervention activities of other volunteers might focus primarily on teaching the youth how to be an effective self-advocate within her/his community so that he/she can successfully obtain desired resources through appropriate means. Typically, volunteers use a combination of both approaches over the course of their 18-week involvement with the youth and family. The volunteer’s primary objective is not to solve specific problems for their youths, but rather to teach their youth and his/her family effective, general skills that they can use on their own once their involvement with the Restore Program has ended. A basic premise held by Restore is that adolescents who have skills in resolving interpersonal problems and skills in obtaining desired community resources will be less likely to engage in illegal activities. The Program’s goal is to train youths in these skills so that they are equipped with effective methods of dealing with problems/situations that they inevitably will confront in the course of every day life.