Creating Opportunities for Engagement: Effects of Prompted Activities in a Juvenile Justice Facility

Juvenile justice facilities often lack structured programming during leisure and recreational activities. In a replication of Luna et al. (2021), practitioners measured the conditional engagement between staff members and residents during leisure periods in which no intervention was implemented. To extend Luna et al. practitioners facilitated prompted communicative activities to increase conditional engagement between staff members and residents. Results of statistical analyses indicated that joint allocation of time between staff members and residents increased significantly more than when no prompted activities occurred. Statistical analyses also revealed that significantly more residents participated in activities when those activities were prompted by staff compared to when similar activities were available without staff involvement. Moreover, the results suggest that staff members provided significantly higher rates of praise during prompted communicative activities. Implications and future research considerations are discussed.