Are youth mentoring programs good value-for-money? An evaluation of the Big Brothers Big Sisters Melbourne Program.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) program matches vulnerable young people with a trained, supervised adult volunteer as mentor. The young people are typically seriously disadvantaged, with multiple psychosocial problems.

Methods

Threshold analysis was undertaken to determine whether investment in the program was a worthwhile use of limited public funds. The potential cost savings were based on US estimates of life-time costs associated with high-risk youth who drop out-of-school and become adult criminals. The intervention was modelled for children aged 10-14 years residing in Melbourne in 2004.

Results

If the program serviced 2,208 of the most vulnerable young people, it would cost AUD 39.5 M. Assuming 50% were high-risk, the associated costs of their ad

SUBMITTER: Moodie ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2640473 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature