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Preparing youth offenders for re-entry : a career counselling intervention programme
Author
Soon, Elaine Yuet Chuen
Supervisor
Cheng, Yuan Shan
Abstract
This research was undertaken to study the effectiveness of a developmentally sensitive career counselling programme for incarcerated male youth reformative trainees. The hope is that with increased motivation and better understanding of the world of work, these youths would be more intrinsically motivated to seek employment and know where and how to seek employment.
This research was the first time a manualized, theory based career counselling programme was developed specially for incarcerated youth reformative trainees preparing for reintegration back into the community.
The career counselling programme (known as the INTEREST programme) consisted of 5 sessions of 120 minutes each. Each programme run was made up of 7 – 12 male Reformative Trainees. The counselling programme focused on various domains of the employment preparation process such as charting their individual life paths, identifying their individual work values, strengths, equipping participants with skills to overcome potential obstacles in job search and job retention and learning conflict resolution skills.
Study participants are 95 male youth Reformative Trainees who are housed at the Reformative Training Center in Singapore Changi Prison Complex. This study was conducted by a between subjects experimental design with pretest and posttest.
Based on the original scales of Career decision self-efficacy (Betz, Klein, & Taylor, 1996), the Career Locus of Control (Millar & Shevlin, 2007) and the Hope Scale (Snyder, Harris, Anderson, Holleran, Irving, Sigmon et al., 1991), factor analysis was performed to derive the dependent variables finally used in the present study. Results indicated that compared to the participants in control group, the participants who attended the INTEREST intervention programme had significantly higher career search self-efficacy, especially in the areas of higher confidence in gathering occupational information, planning for their future and problem solving in job selection. They also showed significantly higher hopefulness scores than participants in the control group.
In short, the study demonstrated that the INTEREST programme was effective in increasing motivation for work and increasing self-efficacy in searching for job information. The programme was also effective in increasing the level of hope in participants with regards to their future.
This research was the first time a manualized, theory based career counselling programme was developed specially for incarcerated youth reformative trainees preparing for reintegration back into the community.
The career counselling programme (known as the INTEREST programme) consisted of 5 sessions of 120 minutes each. Each programme run was made up of 7 – 12 male Reformative Trainees. The counselling programme focused on various domains of the employment preparation process such as charting their individual life paths, identifying their individual work values, strengths, equipping participants with skills to overcome potential obstacles in job search and job retention and learning conflict resolution skills.
Study participants are 95 male youth Reformative Trainees who are housed at the Reformative Training Center in Singapore Changi Prison Complex. This study was conducted by a between subjects experimental design with pretest and posttest.
Based on the original scales of Career decision self-efficacy (Betz, Klein, & Taylor, 1996), the Career Locus of Control (Millar & Shevlin, 2007) and the Hope Scale (Snyder, Harris, Anderson, Holleran, Irving, Sigmon et al., 1991), factor analysis was performed to derive the dependent variables finally used in the present study. Results indicated that compared to the participants in control group, the participants who attended the INTEREST intervention programme had significantly higher career search self-efficacy, especially in the areas of higher confidence in gathering occupational information, planning for their future and problem solving in job selection. They also showed significantly higher hopefulness scores than participants in the control group.
In short, the study demonstrated that the INTEREST programme was effective in increasing motivation for work and increasing self-efficacy in searching for job information. The programme was also effective in increasing the level of hope in participants with regards to their future.
Date Issued
2015
Call Number
HV9203 Soo
Date Submitted
2015