Juvenile Delinquency and Substance Abuse

The RAYS (Rise Above Your Situation) program is a stage-matched online program that integrates best practices from existing evidence-based programs for justice involved youth and substance abusers, and helps juvenile justice and social service professionals to set personal goals and interventions for their clients.

The RAYS program is a youth-driven intervention designed to:

• Serve as an adjunct to traditional juvenile justice programs to reduce recidivism and substance abuse
• Help juvenile justice staff to motivate youth to make behavior change using the stages of change model
• Give juvenile justice staff intervention ideas and other tools to help youth progress through the stages of change for stopping delinquent behavior and/or substance use

The RAYS program allows youth to:

• Complete an online assessment, in a multimedia-rich web-based environment
• Get immediate feedback on their stage of change and individualized guidance designed to facilitate progress through the stages
• Engage in the change process and develop goals to move toward long term behavior change

The RAYS program is a powerful tool for connecting staff with youth, and will allow staff to receive:

• Valuable training and skills
• Important information about their clients
• Individual youth and help-giver reports to guide youth through the stages of change and set stage-matched goals
• A convenient method for documenting one-on-one session activities and generating provider notes

RAYS was well received in a pilot test involving 60 juvenile offenders and their helpgivers (Levesque, Johnson, Welch, Prochaska, & Fernandez, 2012). A cluster randomized trial is currently underway to assess the efficacy of the program among 700 moderate- and high-risk juvenile offenders recruited by 54 probation officers assigned to treatment or control.

Results Published

For more information about RAYS, or to schedule an online demonstration, please contact software@orbispartners.com.