This report provides data to help inform the measurement of youths’ adherence for individual Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts.
The research behind this report investigated the validity of scoring and guideline areas within the Court Self-Assessment (CSA) to understand Juvenile Drug Treatment Court (JDTC) fidelity to the JDTC guidelines. The main objectives of this report are: to summarize the methods and analytic procedures used to answer key questions; to describe data collection results overall, and by guideline areas; to assess adherence to the guidelines overall and characterize across sites; to assess interrelationships of items within guideline are composite measures; and to assess relationship among particular guideline areas. In order to meet those objectives, the authors analyzed data collected by American Institutes for Research (AIR) using the CSA from 35 individual JDTCs. The report provides the authors’ methods, data, and analytic process in-depth, as well as a discussion of the findings and results. The authors conclude, based on research results, that the initial development of the CSA based on conceptual grounds and initial consultations holds up well when considered against a larger sample; they suggest that the JDTC Guidelines and CSA provide a strong foundation for going forward. Appendices include the following documents: Court Self-Assessment; Validation Study Data Collection Master Protocol; and Document Review Coding Protocol.