Project History

This instructional manual was developed in response to the aforementioned demand from educational providers serving incarcerated youth and adults in county or municipal facilities statewide. These providers prioritized their major concerns and needs about providing educational services to their populations. The highest priority in terms of both need and urgency was curriculum development. Hence, a multiphase project was undertaken to determine a format and content that would be most helpful for providers to incarcerated youth.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted as Phase I of this project. Major findings of a review of all relevant literature were summarized in a document entitled The Challenge of Service Provision for Incarcerated Youth: A Review of the Literature (see Appendix A). The literature review concluded with a list of recommendations for incarcerated youth programming. These recommendations were used to more clearly define the objectives of the overall project.

The objective of phase II of the project was to gather information on content and format from providers. This information was gathered via focus groups and surveys.

Focus groups were conducted in both upstate and downstate New York. A select group of instructors, counselors, administrators, corrections personnel, and incarcerated youth were invited to explore the issues and needs regarding curriculum development for incarcerated students.

A survey was mailed to all providers of incarcerated youth in New York State. The survey was designed to obtain as much input as possible from a larger sample than was available through the focus groups. To that end, the survey questions followed the issues addressed in the focus groups, i.e., desired outcomes unique to incarcerated youth and adults and educational providers serving them, barriers to student learning and possible solutions to those barriers, innovative instructional strategies proven successful, and components of the ideal instructional manual.

The enthusiasm of the focus group participants and the overwhelming response to the survey underscored the desirability of focusing on curriculum development. The outcomes of Phase II indicated that a document used simultaneously as a reference tool, as an introductory handbook for new staff, and as a source of staff development and sample lesson ideas would be of great use to providers. In short, providers were looking for this instructional manual.