Young Women Leaders Program (YWLP) Longitudinal Follow-up Study, Central Virginia, 2013-2015

Although delinquency among adolescent girls is rising, little research exists on the long-term effects of prevention programs meant for them. This project is a long-term evaluation of a gender-specific program, the Young Women Leaders Program (YWLP), a one-on-one and group-based mentoring program, in preventing delinquency and related outcomes in girls at-risk for delinquency. The primary research questions included: 1) Is YWLP effective long-term in preventing or reducing delinquency and associated risk outcomes in at-risk adolescent girls? 2) What do mentees and mentors identify as key mentoring and relationship processes related to effective mentoring? 3) Do key mentoring and relationship processes moderate the effects of the mentoring intervention in preventing or reducing girls' delinquency and associated risk outcomes during high school? Researchers collected five-year follow-up surveys from girls who participated in an evaluation of YWLP from 2007-2010. The sample includes two cohorts of girls (2008-09 and 2009-10) who were randomly assigned to participate in YWLP or in a control group during their seventh grade year, as well as a third cohort (2007-2008) of non-randomized program and control girls used to pilot test recruitment strategies and measures, and to boost the sample size for analyses. In the original study, girls were nominated at the end of sixth grade because of individual or demographic characteristics related to delinquency risk and were assigned to YWLP or a control group condition; they completed one pre- and two post-assessments during seventh grade. The research team followed up with the girls five years later and administered surveys focused on key academic, social, emotional, and behavioral indicators. A secondary goal is to assess the role of mentoring processes and relationship quality in explaining girls' long-term outcomes. The research team interviewed a subset of girls and their mentors who were identified as having the highest and lowest quality mentoring relationships during the program (based on their scores on a relational quality scale from the original study). The interview data explores what girls and mentors remember about their mentoring relationships five years later, how they think the program affected them, if at all, and what aspects of the relationships they recalled as helping or hindering the relationship. Data in this release contain two parts: DS1--survey data and DS2--interview transcripts.

尽管少女犯罪率呈上升趋势，但针对该群体的犯罪预防项目长期效果的相关研究仍较为匮乏。本项目针对存在犯罪风险的少女群体，对性别专属项目「青年女性领袖项目（Young Women Leaders Program, YWLP）」开展长期效果评估，该项目是一项融合一对一辅导与团体辅导的导师帮扶项目，旨在预防少女犯罪及相关不良后果。本研究的核心研究问题包括：1）青年女性领袖项目能否在长期内有效预防或降低高风险少女的犯罪行为及相关风险后果？2）受辅导者与辅导者认为哪些关键的辅导与关系进程与高效辅导相关？3）在高中阶段，关键的辅导与关系进程是否会调节导师干预项目对少女犯罪及相关风险后果的预防或缓解效果？

研究人员收集了2007-2010年参与青年女性领袖项目评估的少女的五年追踪调查数据。研究样本包含三部分：第一、二队列分别为2008-09学年与2009-10学年的少女，她们在七年级时被随机分配至青年女性领袖项目组或对照组；第三队列（2007-2008学年）则为非随机分配的项目组与对照组少女，该队列用于预测试招募策略与测量工具，并用于扩大分析所用的样本规模。

在初始研究中，研究人员根据与犯罪风险相关的个体特征或人口统计学特征，在六年级末筛选出符合条件的少女，并将其分配至青年女性领袖项目组或对照组；这些少女在七年级期间完成了1次前测与2次后测。研究团队在五年后对这些少女进行了追踪随访，并开展了聚焦于核心学业、社交、情感与行为指标的调查。

本研究的次要目标是评估辅导进程与关系质量对少女长期发展结果的解释作用。研究团队选取了项目期间（基于初始研究中的关系质量量表得分）被评定为拥有最高与最低质量辅导关系的部分少女及其导师进行访谈。访谈数据旨在探究五年后少女与导师对其辅导关系的回忆、他们对项目影响（若存在）的认知，以及他们认为哪些关系维度对辅导关系起到了促进或阻碍作用。

本次发布的数据包含两部分：DS1为调查数据，DS2为访谈转录文本。