Each year Halt meets 16.000 first offenders, which gives them the unique position to identify youths (and families) in vulnerable circumstances and to offer the necessary support before major problems arise. With a tailored Halt-intervention, Halt aims to prevent youths from making the same mistakes by giving them insight in and the chance to repair these mistakes. In addition to that, youths can now nominate a non-parental, adult mentor from their own social network, also referred to as a Youth Initiated Mentor (YIM). Based on the idea “it takes a village to raise a child”, the YIM forms a pedagogical coalition with parents and functions as a representative and confidant for the adolescent. This research focuses on whether the addition of a YIM to the Halt-intervention contributes to (1) the protective factors and future/development of an adolescent and (2) preventing recidivism. This study will compare youths following the Halt-intervention to youths following the Halt-intervention with a YIM. The study will consist of a pre-, post- and follow-up measurement 6 months after the intervention.

This project is part of and subsidized by the ZonMw Program 'What works for youth?'