Centers for youth at risk are comprehensive community frameworks designed to provide responses to the needs of youth at risk in multiple areas: scholastic, therapeutic, leisure and enrichment. Some centers also provide responses for basic needs, like meals. The centers are implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services, the Ministry of Education, municipal authorities and Ashalim, and constitute an additional tier in the system of community services for youth.
This report presents an integrative analysis of data from a three-year evaluation study (2003-2005) of three models: Meitar in Haifa, Ironoar in Rehovot and the Muntada al-Shabab Center in Kafar Manda, Reine, Tamra and I’billin. The report presents an analysis of issues common to the centers, such as professional practices, their contribution to young people and their place in the system of community services, which is offered as a basis for the continued development of such models. The data were gathered from in-depth interviews and focus groups with key policy workers and field professionals, and surveys of young people and center employees. The report also includes a review of the literature that highlights the principles and methods considered to be the most effective in work with at-risk youth. Among them are strategies for expanding the accessibility of services and increasing their appeal, enhancing the relationship between the staff and the youth, making available a variety of activities that will allow young people to acquire skills, empowering young people and involving them in the centers’ decisionmaking processes, and the inter-organizational relationships between the different community services and the centers.
The centers were analyzed by the extent and manner in which they implemented these principles. Efforts to increase their appeal and accessibility were made in all centers and activities were created to enable youth to acquire skills in different areas. Another common characteristic was the high degree of the youths’ satisfaction with their relationship with the staff, and the staff’s satisfaction with the nature of their work with the youth and with the progress made. However, burnout caused by job conditions and the lack of structured support and a training system for employees were also reported. Another set of outstanding issues relate to establishing and maintaining effective inter-service collaboration.
The findings also indicate changes that occurred in the lives of the youth between the two phases of the evaluation, such as decreased involvement in risk behaviors, a decline in the percentage of alienated youth and a decrease in problems of adjustment to a normative framework.
The study’s findings were presented to the staffs of the centers and members of the national and municipal steering committees, and served as the basis for improving work practices at the centers. Detailed reports on each of the models were submitted to the relevant key authorities. The study was conducted at the initiative of Ashalim and funded with its assistance.