Educationally Disadvantaged Older Youth: Social Supports

Improvement of life skills is another important outcome for social and emotional development. Although 10 programs sought to improve participants' life skills, none measured life skills directly. Two programs, the Nurse Home Visitation Program and JOBSTART, attempted to improve life skills by increasing participants' social supports and their access to social services. Participants in the Nurse Home Visitation Program reported an increase in social support and in the number of people in their support network (NHV3). Participants also reported greater help in accessing services and supports pertaining to transportation, clothing, baby clothing, baby furniture and toys, and health care (NHV3). Participants in JOBSTART reported accessing more services than youths in the control group (JS2). Thus, even though direct measures of life skills are not available, programs for older youths do appear to have improved those skills.