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

Antisocial Behavior Clinical Trial

— ASEP  

Official title:

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

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT04281966
• Other study ID #: 2019002851
• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: June 21, 2019
• Est. completion date: November 30, 2021

Study information

• Verified date: March 2020
• Source: The University of Queensland
• Contact: Lorraine Mazerolle, Ph.D.
• Phone: +61 7 334 67877
• Email: l.mazerolle[@]uq.edu.au
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial 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.

Description:

The ASEP is grounded in the theory of Third Party Policing (TPP). TPP interventions focus on controlling negative behavioral outcomes through partnerships that use a third party's legal powers. In ASEP, the police partner with the schools to work together to engage with young people, reduce their anti-social behavior and increase their school attendance. At the core of the partnership is communication of the legal lever: in ASEP, it is the Queensland Education (General Provisions) Act (2006) - requiring young people attend school up to age 16 and holding parents legally responsible. The laws are communicated to parents and young people who are not regularly attending school in a procedurally fair way within the context of an ASEP conference. The ASEP conference is especially designed to incorporate fair communication of the laws and consequences and involves a purpose-built script that seeks to increase willingness of both parents and young people to comply with the law. The ASEP conference participants include a trained facilitator (from Restorative Outcomes Australia; ROA), the young person missing a lot of school, their parent or guardian, a uniformed school-based police officer, and a school representative (e.g., teacher). An individually tailored Action Plan is developed during the conference which stipulate the "actions" that all conference participants are to take over the subsequent two months in order to ensure that the young person increases their school attendance and re-engages with school and/or transitions into paid work.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Recruiting
• Enrollment: 753
• Est. completion date: November 30, 2021
• Est. primary completion date: November 30, 2021
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 12 Years to 16 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• High school aged young people only, aged 12 to 16;

• Have 15% or more unexplained absences over each other previous two school terms;

• Have no known legitimate explanation for absences (e.g., ongoing medical issue); and

• Have at least one responsibly adult in their lives (e.g., parent, guardian, or carer) who provides social and/or financial support.

Exclusion Criteria:

• None

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Antisocial Behavior
• Antisocial Personality Disorder
• School Attendance
• Welfare Dependence

Intervention

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.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Australia	The University of Queensland	Brisbane	Queensland

Sponsors (5)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
The University of Queensland	Australian Department of Social Services, Department of Education, Queensland, Queensland Police Service, Restorative Outcomes Australia

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Australia, 

References & Publications (22)

Antrobus, E., Bennett, S., Mazerolle, L., & Eggins, E. (2019). Parental and student perceptions of procedural justice and legitimacy in the context of truancy: Results from a randomized field trial. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 52(4), 534-557.

Bennett, S., Mazerolle, L., Antrobus, E., Eggins, E., & Piquero, A. R. (2018). Truancy intervention reduces crime: Results from a randomized field trial. Justice Quarterly, 35(2), 309-329.

Cardwell, S. M., Mazerolle, L., & Piquero, A. R. (2019). Parental attachment and truant rationalizations of antisocial behavior: findings from a randomized controlled trial. Journal of Crime and Justice, 1-19.

Cardwell, S. M., Mazerolle, L., & Piquero, A. R. (2019). Truancy intervention and violent offending: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 49.

Cardwell, S. M., Mazerolle, L., Bennett, S., & Piquero, A. R. (2019). Changing the relationship between impulsivity and antisocial behavior: the impact of a school engagement program. Crime & Delinquency, 65(8), 1076-1101.

Carver CS, Scheier MF, Weintraub JK. Assessing coping strategies: a theoretically based approach. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1989 Feb;56(2):267-83. — View Citation

Carver CS. You want to measure coping but your protocol's too long: consider the brief COPE. Int J Behav Med. 1997;4(1):92-100. — View Citation

Cohn, E. S., Trinkner, R. J., Rebellon, C. J., Van Gundy, K. T., & Cole, L. M. (2012). Legal attitudes and legitimacy: Extending the integrated legal socialization model. Victims & Offenders, 7(4), 385-406.

Haver A, Akerjordet K, Caputi P, Furunes T, Magee C. Measuring mental well-being: A validation of the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale in Norwegian and Swedish. Scand J Public Health. 2015 Nov;43(7):721-7. doi: 10.1177/1403494815588862. Epub 2015 Jun 3. — View Citation

Mazerolle L, Antrobus E, Bennett S, Eggins E. Reducing Truancy and Fostering a Willingness to Attend School: Results from a Randomized Trial of a Police-School Partnership Program. Prev Sci. 2017 May;18(4):469-480. doi: 10.1007/s11121-017-0771-7. — View Citation

Mazerolle, L. (2014). The power of policing partnerships: Sustaining the gains. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 10(3), 341-365.

Mazerolle, L., Antrobus, E., Cardwell, S. M., Piquero, A. R., & Bennett, S. (2019). Harmonizing legal socialization to reduce antisocial behavior: Results from a randomized field trial of truanting young people. Justice Quarterly, 1-28.

Mazerolle, L., Bennett, S., Antrobus, E., Cardwell, S. M., Eggins, E., & Piquero, A. R. (2019). Disrupting the pathway from truancy to delinquency: a randomized field trial test of the longitudinal impact of a school engagement program. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 35(4), 663-689.

Murphy, K., & Mearns, M. (2008). The Public Safety and Security in Australia Survey: Survey methodology and preliminary findings. ARC Centre for Excellence in Policing and Security (Working Paper, October 2008). The Australian National University.

Stewart-Brown S, Tennant A, Tennant R, Platt S, Parkinson J, Weich S. Internal construct validity of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): a Rasch analysis using data from the Scottish Health Education Population Survey. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2009 Feb 19;7:15. doi: 10.1186/1477-7525-7-15. — View Citation

Sunshine, J., & Tyler, T. R. (2003). The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping public support for policing. Law & Society Review, 37(3), 513-548.

Taggart, F., Stewart-Brown, S., & Parkinson, J. (2015). Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) User Guide, Version 2. NHS Health Scotland.

Tankebe, J. (2009). Public cooperation with the police in Ghana: Does procedural fairness matter? Criminology, 47(4), 1265-1293.

Tennant R, Hiller L, Fishwick R, Platt S, Joseph S, Weich S, Parkinson J, Secker J, Stewart-Brown S. The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): development and UK validation. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2007 Nov 27;5:63. — View Citation

Trinkner R, Cohn ES, Rebellon CJ, Van Gundy K. Don't trust anyone over 30: parental legitimacy as a mediator between parenting style and changes in delinquent behavior over time. J Adolesc. 2012 Feb;35(1):119-32. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2011.05.003. Epub 2011 Jun 12. — View Citation

Trinkner R, Cohn ES. Putting the "social" back in legal socialization: procedural justice, legitimacy, and cynicism in legal and nonlegal authorities. Law Hum Behav. 2014 Dec;38(6):602-17. doi: 10.1037/lhb0000107. Epub 2014 Sep 22. — View Citation

Trinkner, R. (2012). Testing the procedural justice model of legal socialization: Expanding beyond the legal world. (Doctoral dissertation). University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire.

* Note: There are 22 references in all — Click here to view all references

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Official School Absences	A count of the number of school absences of young people.	Six-Months Post-Intervention
Primary	Official Arrest Records	A count of official arrest records of young people.	Six-Months Post Intervention
Primary	Perceptions of School Legitimacy	These measures are adapted from the original ASEP Project Trial (Mazerolle, 2014). The original ASEP researchers adapted these scales from Murphy and Mearns (2008), Sunshine and Tyler (2003), and Tankebe (2009). These indices include five items that address respondents' (young people and parents/guardians in the experimental group only) perceptions of legitimacy of school staff with higher values equating to better perceptions of school staff legitimacy.	Two-months post intervention
Primary	Perceptions of School Procedural Justice	These measures are adapted from the original ASEP Project Trial (Mazerolle, 2014). The original ASEP researchers adapted these scales from Murphy and Mearns (2008), Sunshine and Tyler (2003), and Tankebe (2009). These indices include five items that address respondents' (young people and parents/guardians in the experimental group only) perceptions of procedural justice of school staff with higher values equating to better perceptions of school staff procedural justice.	Two-months post intervention
Primary	Perceptions of Police Legitimacy	These measures are adapted from the original ASEP Project Trial (Mazerolle, 2014). The original ASEP researchers adapted these scales from Murphy and Mearns (2008), Sunshine and Tyler (2003), and Tankebe (2009). These indices include five items that address respondents' (young people and parents/guardians in the experimental group only) perceptions of legitimacy of police in general with higher values equating to better perceptions of police legitimacy.	Two-months post intervention
Primary	Perceptions of Police Procedural Justice	These measures are adapted from the original ASEP Project Trial (Mazerolle, 2014). The original ASEP researchers adapted these scales from Murphy and Mearns (2008), Sunshine and Tyler (2003), and Tankebe (2009). These indices include five items that address respondents' (young people and parents/guardians in the experimental group only) perceptions of procedural justice of police in general.	Two-months post intervention
Primary	Perceptions of Family Legitimacy	Adapted from the work of Trinkner, 2012; Trinkner et al., 2012; Trinker & Cohn, 2014. Measures respondents' (young people and parents/guardians in the experimental group only) perceptions of family legitimacy with higher values equating to better perceptions of family legitimacy.	Two-months post intervention
Primary	Perceptions of Family Procedural Justice	Adapted from the work of Trinkner, 2012; Trinkner et al., 2012; Trinker & Cohn, 2014. Measures respondents' (young people and parents/guardians in the experimental group only) perceptions of family procedural justice with higher values equating to better perceptions of family legitimacy.	Two-months post intervention
Primary	General Well-being	The Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (SWEMWBS; Haver et al., 2015; Stewart-Brown et al., 2009; Taggart et al., 2015; Tennant et al., 2007) to be administered to young people and parents in the experimental condition only. It includes 7 items, scores range from 7 to 35, and higher scores coincide with better well-being.	Two-months post intervention
Primary	Self-efficacy	Includes 12 items from the Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced (COPE) Inventory (Carver et al., 1989; Carver, 1997) to be administered to young people and parents in the experimental condition only. Scores will range from 12 to 48 and coded so that higher values equate to better coping skills.	Two-months post intervention

External Links

•   Crime Solutions: Ability School Engagement Program