The Cambridgeshire pilot
The successful pilot study, in 2022, was an adventure and learning experience for the young people and researchers alike.
The pilot study gave us the chance to put Youth Compass to the test and see whether strengthening morality and practising emotion management is well received by young people and, ultimately, if it can help to reduce antisocial behaviour and crime.
Dr Neema Trivedi-Bateman led the pilot trial, supported by a team of five research assistants.
What did we do?
We delivered a nine week after-school programme involving a group of 102 young people, aged 12-16 years, during the spring of 2022 (May-July). The 90-minute sessions were delivered once a week.
The young people completed a pre- and post-intervention questionnaire – but a comparison (control) group did not attend the intervention sessions.
The pre- and post-intervention questionnaires collected data about, for example, empathy, morality, law legitimacy, emotion recognition, quality of relationships with others and self-reported crime.
The participants were recruited from Romsey Mill – a youth work charity in Cambridgeshire – and the programme was delivered at three community centres.
Participants were guided through a range of tasks designed to improve and strengthen morality-related skills, strategies and aptitudes – and received gift vouchers as a thank you for taking part.
The lessons learned
The pilot provided a great opportunity to refine the programme’s range of tasks and delivery methods, allowing us to:
- test the duration of activities, the materials needed and which tasks encouraged participant engagement, enthusiasm and task-focused behaviour
- refine our facilitator training package and administration protocols
A full summary of the pilot's outcomes and the lessons learned is provided by our recent paper, "Addressing Challenges to Carrying Out Intervention Programmes with Youth Populations: Successes and Strategies" (Trivedi-Bateman and Martingano, 2023).