eCheckin.com represents a unique approach for agencies to provide at-risk youth with long-term aftercare services through the World Wide Web. To date, agencies have not been able to reach youth clientele with critically needed services to suppbrt them as they transition toward independent living. The proposed site will offer these youths similar advantages available to most mainstream youths leaving home, such as 24-hour mentoririg, communication with familiar support people, and a secure and trusted place to go to when in need. At the same time, the site will allow agencies to evaluate program outcomes by sustaining an online connection with their alumni. eCheckin.com will serve youth transitioning from foster care, runaway and homeless services, and the Job Corps. Each service sector will have its own Web community with a site for youths, mentors, and agency professionals. All users will have a personalized interface to their respective community, supported by an array of state-of-the art Web features. In Phase I, we will develop and test a prototype youth site for Job Corps. In Phase II, we will fully develop all components for the three Web communities and evaluate the impact of the site on social support, employment attitudes, and user satisfaction with 300 youths.
Agencies serving at-risk youths are continually frustrated by their inability to understand longer- term program outcomes. Each year, hundreds of thousands of youth leave care without a mechanism in place to sustain communication during the most critical time of these youths' lives. eCheckin.com will not only provide agencies with a much needed resource, but will also give their youth clientele the aftercare services they deserve, at a reasonable subscription cost to the agency.
| Pacifici, Caesar; White, Lee; Cummings, Kelli et al. (2005) Vstreet.com: a web-based community for at-risk teens. Child Welfare 84:25-46 |
