Transition to Employment Program (SUPER) for Youth at Risk: A Conceptual and Practical Model
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Youth at Risk
1.2. Career Education Programs to Ease YAR Transition to Work
1.3. SUPER: Conceptual Framework, Program Principles, and Practices
- Knowledge and understanding of concepts related to the working world and employability. The YAR participants acquired knowledge through lessons, meetings with employees, workplace visits, and especially through ongoing work experiences.
- Self- and occupational identity, which we conceptualized as participants developing a clear perspective of their current abilities, strengths, and desired future identities and learning skills related to self-advocacy and self-determination necessary to strengthen and act out such identities.
- Future orientation, which refers to the participants developing aspirations and addressing fears regarding adult lives through exposure to career planning, including higher education, professional education, and graduate studies.
- Work experience, which includes students’ participation in school and out-of-school duties, their development of performance skills and adherence to behavioral norms at school, and their experience of paid work in the labor market accompanied by ongoing feedback.
- H1: The students’ will report a higher level of participation in their school’s duties after participating in SUPER (e.g., performing duties and maintenance work at home, school, and volunteer; helping teachers and peers; employment status; and history).
- H2: The students will get a higher score on a knowledge assessment evaluation of concepts related to the working world after participating in SUPER (e.g., analyzing abilities vs. job demands, safety, and workers’ rights).
- H3: The students’ work and future career orientation evaluation score will increase after participating in SUPER (e.g., expressing dreams and plans regarding their future).
- H4: The students’ ability to advocate for themselves evaluation score will be higher after participating in SUPER (e.g., higher self-advocacy to represent their strengths and needs for accommodations).
- H5: The students’ work performance capacity score (participation at work) will improve while participating in SUPER. (e.g., appearance, job performance, dealing with authority, and teamwork during the work experience).
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Population
2.2. Assessment Tools
- The Background and Responsibilities Questionnaire collected data regarding demographics, the student’s participation in duties (school, home, and volunteer), and prevocational experiences (e.g., employment status and history).
- The Knowledge About the Working World (KAWW) questionnaire, which we adapted from the Concepts Questionnaire [44], measured knowledge and understanding of employment-related issues. It was composed of 16 short descriptions of work situations. The questionnaire required participants to match the situations with a concept (e.g., security issues, personal relations, legal rights, or environmental hazards) taught during the course. For example, participants should match the situation, “The supervisor did not allow the employee to take sick leave, despite the certificate provided by the doctor,” to the concept of rights.
- We developed the Self-Advocacy (SA) Questionnaire for Students and Teachers for the current study for use with students aged 15 years and older. The SA gathered appraisal data regarding the participants’ self-advocacy skills as assessed both by the participants and by their teachers. The questionnaire contained 15 items scored on a scale of 0 (does not know), 1 (does not agree at all), 2 (partially agrees), 3 (agrees), and 4 (totally agrees). We calculated the total score as well as scores for the three SA subscales: knowledge (about me, my environment, and my rights), social self-advocacy, and goal setting. Cronbach’s reliability values were, for the total SA (15 items), α = 0.69 (students) and α = 0.87 (teachers); for knowledge subscale (8 items), α = 0.65 (students) and α = 0.85 (teachers); for social self-advocacy subscale (3 items), α = 0.48 (students) and α = 0.78 (teachers); and for goal setting subscale (4 items), α = 0.79 (students) and α = 0.66 (teachers).
- The Future Orientation (FO) questionnaire collected self-reports from participants concerning their motivation (i.e., expectance, internal control, and external control), cognition (i.e., cognitive representations and the individual’s future), and behavior (i.e., exploration and commitment) with respect to work, career, and higher education [45]. The current study focused on five items pertaining to future work and career. For example, “How often do you think about or plan your future career?” Scoring options were 1 (never), 2 (rarely), 3 (sometimes), 4 (often), and 5 (daily). Cronbach’s reliability values were, for behavior (5 items), α = 0.75; for motivation (10 items), α = 0.71; and for internal control (4 items), α = 0.76.
- The work performance skills (participation at work) were measured by the Performance Capacity Card, assessing generic working skills that employers likely expect in employees, including pairs of items related to the concepts of attendance, persistency, engagement in teamwork, authority acceptance, job performance, initiative, safety, and independence at work [44]. The student and the supervisor conducted independent, parallel assessments of the students’ performance capacity with respect to eight items that were scored from 1 to 10 (where 1 = fair performance, 5 = partial success, and 10 = full success) and then were presented as a total mean score. The card scored attendance separately as a percentage of the students’ expected working hours. The Performance Capacity Card exhibited very good test–retest reliability when examined by t-test (r = 0.84–0.98), as shown by earlier testing on 20 employees on two occasions separated by two weeks [44]. Students and supervisors completed this card on the first, third, and fifth days (T1, T2, and T3, respectively) of the work experience component of SUPER.
2.3. Procedure
2.4. Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Pre–Post Differences in Participation in Duties (School, Home, Work, and Volunteer)
3.2. Pre–Post Differences in Knowledge of the Work World and Future Orientation
3.3. Pre–Post Differences in Self-Advocacy
3.4. Pre–Post Differences in Work Performance
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Characteristic | Category | n | (%) |
---|---|---|---|
The Schools | “M” | 37 | 61.66 |
“E” | 16 | 26.67 | |
“T” | 7 | 11.67 | |
Total | 60 | 100 | |
Grade | 10 | 2 | 3.3 |
11 | 54 | 90 | |
12 | 4 | 6.7 | |
Total | 60 | 100 | |
Gender | Male | 41 | 68.3 |
Female | 19 | 31.7 | |
Total | 60 | 100 |
Pre- or Post- Assessment | Working (N = 57) | Work Frequency (N = 24) | Engagement in Responsibilities (N = 57) | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Yes | Weekly | Monthly | Holidays only | Yes | ||||||
n | % | n | % | n | % | n | % | n | % | |
Pre-intervention | 25 | 43.9 | 8 | 33.3 | 6 | 25.0 | 10 | 41.7 | 16 | 28.1 |
Post-intervention | 47 | 82.5 | 15 | 62.5 | 6 | 25.0 | 3 | 12.5 | 23 | 40.4 |
χ2 | 0.032 * | 0.454 | 0.02* |
Outcome Measures | Pre-Intervention (T1) | Post-Intervention (T2) | t (df) | p | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
M | SD | M | SD | |||
Future orientation: cognitive | 3.38 | 1.250 | 3.870 | 0.900 | −2.996 (54) | 0.004 |
Future orientation: behavioral | 1.96 | 0.731 | 3.060 | 0.674 | −10.483 (56) | 0.000 |
Future orientation: motivational | 3.93 | 0.481 | 4.050 | 0.496 | −1.628 (56) | 0.109 |
Future orientation: internal control | 4.14 | 0.595 | 4.400 | 0.539 | −3.212 (56) | 0.002 |
Knowledge about the working world | 10.94 | 2.695 | 14.298 | 1.592 | −8.915 (56) | 0.000 |
Outcome Measure | Preintervention | Postintervention | t (df) | p | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
M | SD | M | SD | |||
Student SA scales | ||||||
Total | 2.93 | 0.397 | 3.08 | 0.341 | −3.031 (56) | 0.004 |
Knowledge | 3.06 | 0.470 | 3.18 | 0.402 | −2.090 (56) | 0.041 |
Social | 2.44 | 0.670 | 2.69 | 0.598 | −2.995 (56) | 0.004 |
Goals | 3.01 | 0.766 | 3.16 | 0.710 | −1.558 (56) | 0.125 |
Teacher SA scales | ||||||
Total | 2.84 | 0.566 | 2.41 | 0.941 | 3.764 (55) | 0.000 |
Knowledge | 2.82 | 0.641 | 2.38 | 0.990 | 3.545 (55) | 0.001 |
Social | 2.94 | 0.878 | 2.39 | 0.943 | 3.614 (54) | 0.001 |
Goals | 2.79 | 0.711 | 2.48 | 0.102 | 2.416 (55) | 0.019 |
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Ivzori, Y.; Sachs, D.; Reiter, S.; Schreuer, N. Transition to Employment Program (SUPER) for Youth at Risk: A Conceptual and Practical Model. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 3904. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17113904
Ivzori Y, Sachs D, Reiter S, Schreuer N. Transition to Employment Program (SUPER) for Youth at Risk: A Conceptual and Practical Model. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2020; 17(11):3904. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17113904
Chicago/Turabian StyleIvzori, Yonat, Dalia Sachs, Shunit Reiter, and Naomi Schreuer. 2020. "Transition to Employment Program (SUPER) for Youth at Risk: A Conceptual and Practical Model" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17, no. 11: 3904. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17113904