Testing the Efficacy of the Ability School Engagement Partnership Program (ASEP)

Summary

This project is an up-scaled test of the Ability School Engagement Partnership (ASEP) Project. The ASEP is a partnership program that aims to increase school attendance and is grounded in the theory of Third-Party-Policing (TPP). In ASEP, school-based police officers partner with schools (i.e., the third-party) who have legal powers to control and prevent school absenteeism. The ASEP intervention includes an ASEP conference in which the legal requirements to attend school are explicitly communicated in a procedurally just way to young people missing school and their parents/guardians. Restorative Outcomes Australia (ROA) is a provide provider partner who will oversee the facilitation of the ASEP conferences. While the program is designed to re-engage these young people in school and/or facilitate transitions to work and reduce antisocial behavior (e.g., delinquency), this trial will also test the capacity of the program to improve collaboration between the schools and police and also monitor young participants' future life outcomes, such as future welfare dependence.

Conditions

• School Attendance
• Welfare Dependence
• Antisocial Behavior

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Ability School Engagement Program Conference

The ASEP conference focuses on understanding the reasons behind why the young person is not attending school regularly, understand how the young person's non-attendance affects other conference participants, highlight the legal consequences of parents and/or guardians to ensure that their child attends school, and the development of a young person-centered Action Plan, which will specifically detail the "actions" that all parties are to take over the next three months to ensure that the young person re-engages with school and/or transitions into paid work.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Restorative Outcomes Australia

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Department of Education, Queensland

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Queensland Police Service

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Australian Department of Social Services

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• The University of Queensland

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Lorraine Mazerolle, Ph.D. · The University of Queensland

• Sarah Bennett, Ph.D. · The University of Queensland

• Stephanie Cardwell, Ph.D. · The University of Queensland

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

12 Years

Max Age

16 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-06-21

Primary Completion

2021-11-30

Completion

2021-11-30

Countries

• Australia

Study Locations