April 2004

We are having problems with youth who were incarcerated for truancy and are now transitioning from the Department of Corrections back into the community. Two of these youth have once more returned to DOC for truant behavior. Do you know of any innovative, evidence-based truancy intervention programs?

The issue of dropping out of school has garnered greater attention than truancy, but dropping out reflects a long process of disengagement and withdrawal from school. Research on dropouts points to the need to address student attendance from an early age. Additionally, research shows that reductions in truancy are correlated with reductions in daytime crime and drop out rates. Truancy prevention requires a comprehensive community collaboration that should be an integral part of school and community policies to prevent youth crime before it happens. Decisions to establish truancy reduction policies should involve the active participation of parents, youth, educators, law enforcement, clinicians, and community members.  

Federal Model

The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice have promoted five primary elements of a comprehensive community and educational strategy to prevent truancy, though programs incorporating these elements and put forth as federal models have not been thoroughly evaluated for effectiveness.

•  Involve parents in all truancy prevention activities.

•  Ensure that truant behavior is decisively addressed and implement clear attendance policies (e.g., instruct truant students to attend counseling or customized education programs).

•  Create meaningful incentives for parental responsibility.

•  Establish ongoing truancy prevention programs in school (i.e., schools should address the specific needs of children through developing such initiatives as tutoring programs, added security, drug prevention, mentorship involvement on the part of community and religious groups, parent involvement campaigns, and referrals to social service agencies).

•  Involve local law enforcement in truancy reduction efforts.

School-Based Interventions  

The school setting provides an environment in which youth, parents, and educators can naturally form partnerships and interact collaboratively to implement school-based interventions and achieve positive outcomes.

A study by Epstein and Sheldon (2002) analyzed school practices and attendance rates over 3 years at 12 elementary schools. These researchers found that assigning a truant officer to students and families with attendance problems, rewarding students for improved attendance, connecting parents with school contact persons, referring chronically absent students to counselors, communicating effectively with diverse families, and conducting workshops for families focused on school attendance had strong, positive associations with changes in average daily student attendance over 1 year. Additionally, they found that rewarding students for improved attendance, connecting parents with school contact persons, and making home visits helped reduce chronic absenteeism (the percentage of students who missed 20 or more days of school). These findings clearly suggest that a partnership among educators, families, and communities is an important vehicle for reducing truancy.

School-based truancy interventions need to do the following:

• Promote greater school engagement for truant students
• Create meaningful, interpersonal relationships between students and teachers
• Consider the social aspects of school programming when attempting to motivate and engage students in school
• Consider the age of the students when designing truancy prevention programs (typically, contacting parents works well for students in grades 9 and 10 but does not have great impact in grades 11 and 12)
• Uphold cultural competence because the diversity of families needs to be considered in developing truancy programs.

Community-Based Interventions

The Hennepin County Targeted Early Intervention program for delinquent youth uses a team of county staff (social worker, economic assistance worker, psychologist, and public health worker) along with a staff member from a community organization to target the needs of high-risk children and their families. Youth who participated in the program attended school 89 percent of enrolled days compared with 78 percent of enrolled days for comparison youth not involved in the intervention program (Gerrard et al. 2003). This finding suggests that a collaborative multisystemic approach can contribute to increasing attendance rates among high-risk youth.

Law Enforcement or Court-Based Interventions

Research on law enforcement or court-based truancy intervention has revealed minimal contribution to increasing student attendance (Epstein & Sheldon, 2002). The Kern County Truancy Reduction Project in central California uses probation officers to conduct school and home visits every other week to meet with truant students. Results show that 42 percent of youth have no further unexcused absences after intervention (Gerrard et al., 2003). This finding suggests that probation officers devoted to truancy intervention can contribute to reductions in student absenteeism, but this effect may also be due to the unique personality and skill of an individual officer.

What Works

• Building relationships because students need individualized attention and strong, positive relationships with teachers, adults, and peers based on mutual trust and respect
• Contacting parents regarding absenteeism
• Establishing strong, clear attendance policies
• Undertaking family counseling that builds on the family's strengths and resources, with the overall goal of increasing attendance
• Using intensive school interventions, such as clear policies, mentorships, individualized plans, team approach, and promoting culturally competent teaching and learning strategies
• Establishing ongoing truancy prevention programs in school, rather than a one-time truancy reduction effort
• Employing highly trained, committed, and supported school staff who provide high-quality, responsive services to high-risk youth
• Maintaining ongoing, rigorous evaluation from the beginning of the truancy prevention program implementation to assess the program's impact

References

Epstein, J. L., & Sheldon, S. B. (2002). Present and accounted for: Improving student attendance through family and community involvement. The Journal of Educational Research, 95 (5), 308-318.

Gerrard, M. D., Burhans, A., & Fair, J. (2003). Effective truancy prevention and intervention: A review of relevant research for the Hennepin County School Success Project. St. Paul, MN: Wilder Research Center.

Sinclair, M. F., Christenson, S. L., Evelo, D. L., & Hurley, C. M. (1998). Dropout prevention for youth with disabilities: Efficacy of a sustained school engagement procedure. Exceptional Children , 65 (1), 7-21.

U.S. Department of Education & U.S. Department of Justice. (1996). Manual to combat truancy. Washington, DC: Author.

Acknowledgment to Alice Davidson for her preparation of these materials