Craig Winston LeCroy

Arizona State University | ASU · School of Social Work

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of a gender-specific intervention targeted to adolescent males to reduce sexual risks. Method: This study used a randomized clinical trial comparing a broad-based male empowerment curriculum with a no-treatment control group. The sample (N = 580) was recruite...

Home visitation research remains on the forefront as policy makers look to evidence for programs they believe are worthy of investment, particularly in terms of child abuse prevention. A randomized controlled trial (N = 245) of the Healthy Families Arizona home visitation program was conducted. Outcomes were assessed across several key domains rela...

Findings from a longitudinal RCT of the Go Grrrls risk reduction curriculum.

Purpose: Adolescent females continue to face health consequences associated with risky sexual behaviors such as unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of a gender-specific intervention targeted to early adolescent females. Method: This study used an intent to treat rand...

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate breastfeeding practices of teen mothers in a pre- and postnatal education and support program. Study design and methods: We studied breastfeeding practices of primarily Hispanic and non-Hispanic White teen mothers who participated in the Teen Outreach Pregnancy Services (TOPS) program, which pro...

This book offers an integrative approach to biopsychosocial case formulations of case and developmental human behavior concerns. The sixth edition builds on prior efforts in promoting integrative assessments by adopting a specific method for completing case formulations that students can apply to case studies in the book's developmental chapters. T...

Home visitation has the potential to improve parent, child, and maternal outcomes and has become a widely implemented prevention program across the United States. The purpose of this research was to use a randomized controlled trial to assess the short-term effectiveness of the Arizona Healthy Families program across a range of outcomes. Two hundre...

A recidivism risk instrument was developed and validated on a sample of juvenile offenders (N = 1,987) based on the need to classify juveniles by their likelihood of re-offense. Female recidivism (R(2) = 27%) was predicted by younger age at first expulsion from school, history of parent incarceration, gang involvement, felony class offense, and fir...

Changes in the mechanisms of communication and advances in brain imaging technology shape understanding and interpretation of the manner in which adolescents process and respond to information and relate to others. Knowledge about how trends in adolescent development should inform practice with adolescents is limited, and yet emerging trends and ne...

An edited book of highly practical case examples from a diverse range of clinicians on a diverse range of topics for applied practice.

Social work practice emerges from research conducted with outcome studies that attempt to capture the ‘‘change’’ that social work services are designed to influence. However, it is unclear the extent to which social workers are prioritizing, and thereby producing, publications that investigate this change. We find that both the number and the perce...

The purpose of this study is to explore the knowledge and attitudes about autism spectrum disorders among Hispanics in the Southwest. The study will also examine perceived barriers in obtaining resources and preferences in accessing health care. Participants (N = 169) were surveyed using the Autism Awareness Survey, which was developed specifically...

The Healthy Families Parenting Inventory (HFPI) is a 63-item outcome measure that was designed to examine change in nine parenting-related domains. The HFPI was developed to respond to the need for an outcome measure for home visitation programs that is relevant to the intervention, sensitive to change, and appropriate with a diverse participant ba...

This study explores the American public's knowledge and perception of both the foster care system and foster parents, while examining the public's opinion of the foster care system's importance relative to other national social issues. Using random digit dialing techniques, this study asked 301 nationally representative respon-dents to complete a s...

Importance of Gender-Specific ProgramsDirecting InterventionsStudies Evaluating the Go Grrrls ProgramOverview of the ProgramConducting a Session: A Closer LookConclusions

Handbook of Prevention and Intervention Programs for Adolescent Girls presents the latest research, programs, and approaches that respond to the needs of today's adolescent girls. In this practical guide, editors Craig LeCroy and Joyce Mann have brought together a notable team of contributors to produce a resource with both diverse coverage and pra...

The Girl's Movement: A Context for Program DevelopmentSpecial Risks for Adolescent GirlsDevelopmental ConsiderationsDiversityBuilding Programs

“Youth at risk” is a general term for a range of circumstances that place young people at greater vulnerability for problem behaviors, such as substance abuse, school failure, and juvenile delinquency, and mental health disorders, such as depression and anxiety. When studying youth at risk, researchers typically focus on the risk factors that contr...

The field of home visitation to prevent child abuse and neglect provides a good example of issues in outcome measurement that have not undergone sufficient critique. Some frequently used measures being used as outcome assessments have not been specifically designed for outcome measurement and therefore have limitations. In particular, some of these...

This article addresses efforts to build social work research in a manner consistent with good science and research. A critical perspective is applied to examine what does not work in building knowledge and how social work research can address factors that limit knowledge building. A critical perspective is imperative to social work knowledge buildi...

Healthy Families Arizona is a voluntary, home visitation program aimed at preventing child abuse and neglect. This study sought to examine the impact of the Healthy Families Arizona program on (a) reducing the risk of child abuse and neglect, (b) child health and development, and (c) parent/child relationships. To examine program impact in these th...

In the field of juvenile justice and corrections, aftercare is often considered the most neglected phase in the treatment of juvenile offenders. It is in the provision of aftercare servies that practitioners make a number of decisions havening life-determining consequences for youth and thei families. Yet, agencies have not developed specific crite...

This study examined predictors of substance use and negative activity involvement among a diverse sample of European American, African American, Hispanic, Native American, and multiracial early adolescents (n = 749) living in a large urban city in the Southwest United States. This study investigated a broad set of predictor variables that tap socio...

EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE (EBP) is a term that is now widely used in social work and psycho -social disciplines. Modeled after evidence-based medicine, a state-of-the-art approach where the focus is on finding appropriate treatments (pharmaceutical, medical, and surgical) for a patient's medical conditions (Eddy, 2005; Sack ett, Rosenberg, Gray, Hayn...

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that predict academic achievement and school attachment among Hispanic seventh- and eighth-grade adolescents and to determine whether the associations between these factors are similar for Hispanic and white adolescents. The sample consisted of 170 adolescents. Results for Hispanic adolescents...

This chapter reviews the history of small group practice and theory. The contemporary issues, including the multiple purposes of group work and the dual focus of group work, are introduced. Systems theory, psychoanalytic theory, and social learning theory are reviewed and demonstrated how they have been applied to small group work through Systems C...

Adolescents face significant risks in today's society and it is estimated that one in five adolescents suffers from a current developmental, emotional, or behavioral problem. This chapter reviews current problems facing adolescents and examines prevention and intervention programs designed to improve adolescent mental health and well-being. Develop...

This qualitative study of 46 randomly selected participants of a home visitation program explores current participants' perceptions of the intake process, the program's purpose, and the relationship between the home visitor and the participant. The findings reveal that the participant and home visitor relationship is a central feature of the progra...

S tatistical methods are the haUmark of quantita-tive research. Examining whether a result is statistically significant is standard content in social work research statistics courses. In all of social science, statistical significance testing has been the accepted procedure for examining results. Despite ongoing efforts aimed at encouraging researc...

Healthy Families Arizona is a broadly implemented home visitation program aimed at preventing child abuse and neglect, improving child health and development, and promoting positive parent/child interaction. The program began as a pilot in two sites in 1991 and by 2004 had grown to 48 sites located in urban, rural, and tribal regions of the state....

Guided by an integrated theory of parent participation, this study examines the role community characteristics play in influencing a parent's decision to use voluntary child abuse prevention programs. Multiple regression techniques were used to determine if different community characteristics, such as neighborhood distress and the community's ratio...

Little is known as to why some parents choose to engage in voluntary home visitation services while others refuse or avoid services. To address this knowledge gap, this study tests several hypotheses about the factors that influence maternal intentions to engage in home visitation services and the link between these intentions and the receipt of a...

This exploratory study examines gender differences in the patterns of drug offers among a sample of 71 American Indian middle school students. Participants respond to an inventory of drug-related problem situations specific to the cultural contexts of Southwestern American Indian youth. They are asked to consider the frequency of drug offers from s...

This paper describes a five-stage approach toward conducting an ecologically based assessment with Indigenous youth populations, and the implications of this approach for the development and implementation of culturally grounded prevention interventions. A description of a pilot study funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute o...

To better understand the potential impacts of federal Abstinence-Only Education (AOE) funds in preventing teen pregnancy, the current study measured the specific content of Title V AOE programs, and the relationships between program content and adolescents’ pretest to posttest changes for 11 outcome indicators. Program content areas were coded for...

The primary purpose of this study was to use an ecological assessment model to obtain a better understanding of difficult situations that home visitors confront when implementing home visitation services. A mixed method study was used which included conducting focus groups to identify specific situations faced by home visitors who implement the Hea...

To investigate ethnic differences in onset of sexual intercourse among Hispanic/Mexican American and white adolescents based on acculturation. Preprogram survey data from 7270 Hispanic or white teens in 7th to 12th grade involved in the Arizona Abstinence-Only Education Program were used to predict the probability of onset of sexual intercourse bas...

This article describes the process of building an effective primary prevention program using existing knowledge about developmental processes of adolescent girls. While many programs are described as "empirically based," the process of developing an empirically based program often goes unreported. Using a primary prevention program for early adoles...

This article describes and evaluates the Go Grrrls Program, a preventive intervention specifically designed for early adolescent girls. The 12-session curriculum was designed to address developmental tasks considered critical for healthy psychosocial development, such as achieving competent gender role identification, establishing an acceptable bod...

This study examined difficult situations related to drug and alcohol use as identified by American Indian youth in the South-west. Sixty-two contextually based items were developed from focus group data, and were administered to 71 American Indian youth. The items measured the frequency in which youth experienced specific drug-related situations, a...

This article reports on the public's current perception of the social work profession as examined in a nationally representative, random digit telephone survey of 386 people. The survey asked respondents about their knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes regarding the profession and its practitioners and required respondents to make comparisons between...

This article reports on the public's current perception of the social work profession as examined in a nationally representative, random digit telephone survey of 386 people. The survey asked respondents about their knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes regarding the profession and its practitioners and required respondents to make comparisons between...

This article describes and evaluates the Go Grrrls Program, a preventive intervention specifically designed for early adolescent girls. The 12-session curriculum was designed to address developmental tasks considered critical for healthy psychosocial development, such as achieving competent gender role identification, establishing an acceptable bod...

This article is an evaluation of a preventive intervention developed for early ado- lescent girls. The 12-session curriculum was designed to address developmental tasks considered critical for the healthy psychosocial development of early ado- lescent girls in contemporary society. The program content included the following units: being a girl in t...

An increase in the number of juveniles entering the juvenile justice system in the past 10 years has heightened the demand for rehabilitation services. Because the demand for rehabilitative services is greater than resources allow, efforts are underway to predict who is a high risk for recidivism so that services may be focused on these juveniles,...

Recent statistics show a decrease in the overall use of drugs and alcohol in the general population [1]. In sharp contrast to this trend is the indication that adolescents' use of drugs and alcohol is increasing [2]. Because the use of drugs and alcohol can have serious implications for adolescents' physical, emotional, and social development, it i...

While adolescent substance use has been the focus of extensive research over the last few decades, Hispanic adolescent substance use has received only limited attention. Studies exploring predictors of Hispanic adolescent substance use have failed to adequately explore the contribution of the family on substance use. The present study examined the...

This paper describes the development of The Seriously Emotionally Disturbed Adolescent Social Competence Inventory (SEDASCI). The goal is to provide an instrument which can be used in the design of social skills programs targeting the social problems of seriously emotionally disturbed youth. A Behavior-Analytic Model was used in which empirically-b...

Alcoholics who receive treatment in in-patient settings are routinely referred to Alcoholics Anonymous upon discharge, yet not all affiliate with A.A. The characteristics of A.A. affiliators have been explored in the past to further improve discharge planning, but to date no studies have described the characteristics of adolescents who affiliate wi...

This paper presents an overview of eight approaches in juvenile parole policy for terminating, extending, and discharging youths from juvenile parole or aftercare. These types were derived from the results of a national survey of juvenile parole policy in the United States. This survey was sent to the departments of correction, youth service bureau...

This article describes the content and design of a model program to prepare social work students to work effectively with severely mentally disturbed children and adolescents. Task analysis of skill areas (assessment, intervention, case management, and critical thinking) informed development of the suggested curriculum. The training program design...

An increasing number of children and adolescents are in need of mental health services, although few children receive the treatment they need. Although progress in understanding and treating children's mental disorders is limited, a great deal more is known today about how to prevent mental disorders, what treatments are effective, and the importan...

It is becoming increasingly recognized that millions of children are suffering from serious mental health problems. This article reviews the available knowledge base for providing treatment to children across the continuum of mental health services from outpatient treatment to hospitalization. Mental health services are evaluated according to their...

An examination of the way in which social workers use knowledge suggests an instrumental approach to knowledge use. This approach has important implications for moving the profession toward greater accountability in the practice of social work. Unless educators can motivate practitioners to change the way in which they ask questions and make predic...

The feasibility of adopting the use of single-system designs for evaluating practice has become an important topic in the field of social work. This study addresses this issue by examining the extent to which behavior therapists, who espouse empirical methods as part of their practice, use various single-system designs in their practice. In additio...

Risk-assessment instruments are increasingly being used, the majority of research evaluating such instruments with adult offenders. The purpose of this study was to compare three models being used to predict recidivism in juvenile offenders. Discriminant analysis was used to examine the extent to which these various models could discriminate betwee...

The Caring Days procedure for marital therapy (Stuart, 1980) is investigated to determine its potential for positive change with nondistressed married couples. Thirtytwo married couples are randomly assigned to either an experimental group that employs the Caring Days technique or to an attention control group. The couples are given pretest, postte...

Although residential treatment is widely being used for juvenile offenders there is little information on the criteria used to decide when a young person should be placed in a residential setting. This article presents a decision-making model developed for use by parole workers in determining the level of restrictiveness and the need for a resident...

This study investigated the relative effectiveness of an anger management and anger expression group on various outcome measures of treatment success. The participants in the study were adolescents in residential treatment. The findings suggest better outcome with the use of anger management techniques when compared with anger expression techniques...

Risk assessment devices are being increasingly used throughout the country. Most research has evaluated the use of such instruments with adults. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity of the Wisconsin Juvenile Probation and Aftercare Risk instrument that is being promoted as a “model system” for other states to use. This study used...

This paper examines the influence of parent-adolescent intimacy on adolescent functioning. Intimacy for both adolescent males and females was assessed in relation to their mothers and fathers. Adolescent development was measured using two scales: self-esteem and problem behavior. No significant differences were found between males and females on th...

A study examined patterns of content in course outlines used to teach social work practice. Findings concerning teaching units typically covered, textbooks used as required reading, and the type of assignments given reveal several new directions, which are interpreted in light of Council on Social Work Education policy. (MSE)

Based upon a sample of 106 social workers, factors related to burnout are examined. Several variables related to the job structure within the social services emerge as potentially important determinants of burnout. These include satisfaction, autonomy, self-esteem, and discrepancy. It would appear that the source of the burnout problem is more a fu...

This study investigated the ways in which the gender of group leader and client might affect treatment outcome with young adolescents. Seventh- and eighth-grade students were involved in programs for enhancing social competence. Mixed-sex groups of adolescents received treatment from either male or female group leaders. Results revealed gender diff...

Evaluated the potential of preventive intervention for early adolescents, using 73 7th-grade Norwegian students. Ss were assigned to 1 of 4 experimental models for promoting social competence: problem solving, social skills, social-cognitive, and attention-control. Results show that prevention programs could be directed to adolescents and that a co...

Discusses the role of stress in child development, and identifies ways in which school social workers can respond to the stressful events that children must learn to cope with to adapt successfully in society. Topics of discussion include prevention and remedial services and cognitive and social skills training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 A...

Social work has placed more emphasis on the conceptual development of practice than on its methodology. This article examines the state of practice research in relation to its methodology. Recent evaluations of social work practice are used to review and comment on specific methodological issues. In particular, reliability and validity issues are d...

A child’s social competence continues to receive extensive attention from researchers, developmentalists, and social practitioners (e.g., Edelson & Rose, 1981; LaGreca & Santogrossi, 1980; LeCroy, 1983; Swetnam, Peterson, & Clark, 1983). By social competence we are referring to the ability to produce desired effects on others in specific social sit...

Residential treatment continues to be a major vehicle for delivering services to troubled youth and their families. A review of some current trends is presented to examine research supporting current practice and to highlight professional issues and concerns in residential treatment. In particular, incentive systems, child-care staffing, parent inv...

The past two decades have evidenced an increasing amount of interest in theory construction and development in the area of the family. Yet in spite of this interest, few theorists have focused on the possibilities of utilizing a multiple theoretical approach in interpreting data and guiding practice interventions. The complementarity of three often...

Practitioner competence is becoming an increasingly important priority within the social work profession. A skill training program designed to promote practice competence was developed to examine problematic situations for social workers. Previous training programs have emphasized basic skills but have not attempted to teach skills in specific prob...

School social workers can help improve the mental health of families by training parents in child-raising techniques. The authors describe a successful preventive program of parent education that included measures of effectiveness and made use of lectures, group discussion, reading assignments, role playing, and consultation.

This article describes critical incident recording which provides for efficient collection and retrieval of clinical data. It is particularly relevant to recording and supervision of work with groups for it allows the supervisor and the practitioner to be selective in examining the complexities of group process.