Washington State Institute for Public Policy

Teen Outreach Program
Public Health & Prevention: Community-based
Literature review updated April 2012.

The Teen Outreach Program (TOP) is a volunteer service learning program for high school students. TOP is aimed at high-risk adolescents and consists of supervised community volunteer experience (e.g. in nursing homes, senior centers, child care centers) of between 20 to 40 hours per school year to increase students’ social engagement with peers, teachers, and community adults. The volunteer service is coupled with classroom discussions of the volunteer experience as well as other topics (15% or less on sexuality) with trained teachers/facilitators. Trained program staff coordinate with community agencies to place students.

META-ANALYSIS	CITATIONS

**Meta-analysis** is a statistical method to combine the results from separate studies on a program, policy, or topic in order to estimate its effect on an outcome. WSIPP systematically evaluates all credible evaluations we can locate on each topic. The **outcomes** measured are the types of program impacts that were measured in the research literature (for example, crime or educational attainment). **Treatment N** represents the total number of individuals or units in the treatment group across the included studies.

An **effect size** (ES) is a standard metric that summarizes the degree to which a program or policy affects a measured outcome. If the effect size is positive, the outcome increases. If the effect size is negative, the outcome decreases.

**Adjusted effect sizes** are used to calculate the benefits from our benefit cost model. WSIPP may adjust effect sizes based on methodological characteristics of the study. For example, we may adjust effect sizes when a study has a weak research design or when the program developer is involved in the research. The magnitude of these adjustments varies depending on the topic area.

WSIPP may also adjust the second ES measurement. Research shows the magnitude of some effect sizes decrease over time. For those effect sizes, we estimate outcome-based adjustments which we apply between the **first time ES is estimated** and the **second time ES is estimated**. We also report the **unadjusted effect size** to show the effect sizes before any adjustments have been made. More details about these adjustments can be found in our Technical Documentation.
Meta-Analysis of Program Effects
Outcomes measured	Primary or secondary participant	No. of effect sizes	Treatment N	Adjusted effect sizes (ES) and standard errors (SE) used in the benefit-cost analysis						Unadjusted effect size (random effects model)
				First time ES is estimated			Second time ES is estimated			Unadjusted effect size (random effects model)
				ES	SE	Age	ES	SE	Age	ES	p-value
Suspensions/expulsions	Primary	1	332	-0.217	0.109	17	-0.217	0.109	18	-0.570	0.001
Teen pregnancy (under age 18)	Primary	2	359	-0.212	0.177	17	-0.212	0.177	27	-0.554	0.008

Citations Used in the Meta-Analysis

Allen, J.P., Philliber, S., Herrling, S., & Kuperminc, G.P. (1997). Preventing teen pregnancy and academic failure: Experimental evaluation of a developmentally based approach. Child Development, 64(4), 729-742.

Philliber, S., & Allen, J.P. (1992). Life options and community service: Teen outreach program. In B. C. Miller, J. J. Card, R. L. Paikoff, & J. L. Peterson (Eds.), Preventing adolescent pregnancy: Model programs and evaluations (pp. 139-155). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.