Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®)

About This Program

Target Population: Male and female adolescents in grades 6-12 who may come from disadvantaged circumstances

For children/adolescents ages: 11 – 19

Program Overview

The Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®) promotes the positive development of adolescents through curriculum-guided, interactive group discussions; positive adult guidance and support; and community service learning. TOP® is focused on key topics related to adolescent health and development, including building social, emotional, and life skills; developing a positive sense of self; and connecting with others. Specific curriculum lesson topics include health and wellness (including sexuality), emotion management, and self-understanding among many others. In addition, the development of supportive relationships with adult facilitators is a crucial part of the model, as are relationships with other peers in the program.TOP® has been adapted to fit the needs of special populations, including youth in foster care, justice involved youth, and LGBTQ youth. Any adaptations need Wyman's prior approval which can be requested through the program representative whose contact information is located at the end of this entry. Please note, the adapted versions have not been reviewed or rated by the CEBC.

Program Goals

The goals of the Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®) are:

  • Improve social, emotional, and life skills
  • Support development of a positive sense of self
  • Strengthen connections to others
  • Improve academic outcomes and decrease risky behavior

Logic Model

View the Logic Model for Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®).

Essential Components

The essential components of the Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®) include:

  • TOP® Trained Adults: TOP® is delivered by a trained adult facilitator to a group of teens referred to as a "TOP Club."
  • Weekly Peer Group Meetings: TOP Clubs meet for at least 25 weekly meetings across a program cycle, with a teen to facilitator ratio no greater than 25:1.
  • TOP® Curriculum: Facilitators provide at least 12 lessons from the TOP® curriculum with content tailored to teens' needs and interests
    • Specific curriculum topics include:
      • Emotion management
      • Problem-solving
      • Decision-making
      • Goal-setting
      • Health and wellness (including sexuality)
      • Self-understanding
      • Social identity
      • Empathy
      • Communication
      • Relationships
      • Community
  • Community Service Learning: TOP® teens complete at least 20 hours of meaningful community service learning, which includes planning, action, and reflection.
  • Quality Assurance Plan to guide the monitoring of fidelity and quality

Program Delivery

Child/Adolescent Services

Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®) directly provides services to children/adolescents and addresses the following:

  • Potentially risky behaviors including sexual behaviors; poor academics; poor relationships with adults and peers; poor social emotional and life skills

Recommended Intensity:

60-minute weekly meetings (can be 45 minutes if needed)

Recommended Duration:

The total program duration for participating youth is at least 32 weeks with at least 25 weekly meetings, although youth may participate in multiple years of the program.

Delivery Settings

This program is typically conducted in a(n):

  • Community-based Agency / Organization / Provider
  • Group or Residential Care
  • School Setting (Including: Day Care, Day Treatment Programs, etc.)

Homework

This program does not include a homework component.

Languages

Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®) has materials available in a language other than English:

Spanish

For information on which materials are available in this language, please check on the program's website or contact the program representative (contact information is listed at the bottom of this page).

Resources Needed to Run Program

The typical resources for implementing the program are:

Program materials including the Coordinator Work Plan, Sample TOP Calendar for Coordinators, and the Life Cycle of TOP for Coordinators; a meeting room for holding Club Meetings; Internet access both for utilizing online resources including Wyman Connect (online data management system) and to enhance student exploration of community service learning options, etc.; access to transportation for facilitators to aid in completion of community service learning opportunities

Manuals and Training

Prerequisite/Minimum Provider Qualifications

There is no minimum educational level required before attending TOP® facilitator training. Adults who facilitate TOP® must be trained through completion of the 2½-day TOP® Training of Facilitators. The TOP Coordinator (person assuming responsibility for overall TOP® implementation) completes a 5-day TOP® Training of Trainers.

Manual Information

There is a manual that describes how to deliver this program.

Program Manual(s)

Manual details:

  • Wyman Center, Inc. (2023). Teen Outreach Program® Curriculum©. (2nd ed.) Author.
  • Wyman Center, Inc. (2017). Teen Outreach Program® Training of Facilitators (TOF) Participant Guide. Author.

Please reach out to the program contact for more information about training and program implementation materials.

Training Information

There is training available for this program.

Training Contact:
Training Type/Location:

Once an organization applies to become a Replication Partner, the organization identifies its coordinator (the person assuming responsibility for overall implementation of TOP®), who completes a 5-day TOP® Training of Trainers module. This equips the coordinator to train others in their organization or network to implement TOP®, and ensures their full understanding of the fidelity standards and process. The coordinator then trains TOP® facilitators (those who will directly implement the program with teens) through a 2½-day TOP® Training of Facilitators. Trainings of Trainers are held at Wyman headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, on a quarterly basis. A Training of Trainers may also be conducted at a Replication Partner site with sufficient enrollment.

Number of days/hours:

2½ days for a total of 20 hours for Training of Facilitators; 5 days for a total of 40 hours for Training of Trainers

Implementation Information

Pre-Implementation Materials

There are pre-implementation materials to measure organizational or provider readiness for Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®) as listed below:

Wyman staff work directly with prospective Replication Partners to assess their readiness to implement TOP® through an exploration process. Wyman also offers a tool, TOP Implementation Guidance and Readiness Self-Assessment, to assist potential partners with understanding the expectations and best practices for quality replication of TOP®, as well as to assess their readiness for replication.

Formal Support for Implementation

There is formal support available for implementation of Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®) as listed below:

TOP® is replicated through Wyman’s National Network of implementing partner organizations, which is designed to help partners provide TOP® at a large scale within their communities. Through this process, Wyman maintains an on-going training, technical assistance, and network support relationship with partners. TOP® Replication Through a dedicated Partner Support Manager from Wyman, partners receive technical assistance, supplemental trainings, and additional resources to support their high-quality replication of TOP®. A Partner Support Manager also conducts at least annual reviews of fidelity and continuous improvement with each partner.

Fidelity Measures

There are fidelity measures for Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®) as listed below:

Fidelity data is tracked by replication partners implementing TOP®. Implementation data are entered online into Wyman's database, Wyman Connect. Data include items such as youth attendance, community-service learning hours, and curriculum lessons delivered. Wyman Connect provides a live dashboard and reports to enable partners' monitoring and quality improvement activities.

Fidelity Measure Requirements:

Fidelity measures are required to be used as part of program implementation.

Implementation Guides or Manuals

There are implementation guides or manuals for Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®) as listed below:

There are a number of guides and resources including:

  • Training of Facilitators Participant Guide
  • Training of Trainers Training Guide
  • TOP Coordinator Planning and Delivery Cycle
  • TOP Evaluation Guide
  • TOP Curriculum
  • Style Guide
  • Coordinator Planning Tool

For more information, please reach out to the program contact.

Implementation Cost

There are no studies of the costs of Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®).

Research on How to Implement the Program

Research has not been conducted on how to implement Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®).

Relevant Published, Peer-Reviewed Research

Child Welfare Outcome: Child/Family Well-Being

Allen, J. P., Philliber, S., Herrling, S., & Kuperminc, G. P. (1997). Preventing teen pregnancy and academic failure: Experimental evaluation of a developmentally based approach. Child Development, 64(4), 729–742. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1997.tb04233.x

Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of Participants: 695

Population:

  • Age — Mean=15.8 years
  • Race/Ethnicity — 67% Black, 18% White, 11% Hispanic, and 4% Other
  • Gender — 85% Female and 15% Male
  • Status — Participants were high school students in 9–12th grade.

Location/Institution: Not specified

Summary: (To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Teen Outreach [now called Wyman’s Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®)] to address teenage pregnancy and school failure. Participants were randomized to either Teen Outreach or a control group. Measures utilized include self-reported questionnaires that reported demographic age, grade level, race, predominate household composition, parents' education, and problem behaviors. Results indicate that rates of pregnancy, school failure and academic suspension at exit were substantially lower in the Teen Outreach group, even after accounting for student socioeconomic characteristics and entry differences between groups. Limitations include the high rate of attrition in the control group, reliance on self-reported measures, unknown generalization to other unexamined Teen Outreach sites, and lack of follow-up.

Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: None.

Allen, J. P., & Philliber, S. (2001). Who benefits most from a broadly targeted prevention program? Differential efficacy across populations in the Teen Outreach Program. Journal of Community Psychology, 29(6), 637–655. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.1040

Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of Participants: 3,277

Population:

  • Age — Mean=15.8 years
  • Race/Ethnicity — 45% Black, 37% White, 13% Hispanic, and 5% Other
  • Gender — 73% Male and 27% Female
  • Status — Participants were high school students in 9th-12th grade.

Location/Institution: Not specified

Summary: (To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
The purpose of the study was to utilize data collected over a 4-year period across over 60 Teen Outreach [now called Wyman’s Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®)] sites nationwide to examine: 1) whether this broad-based competence-enhancing intervention may be most efficacious when serving higher risk adolescents, assessed in terms of both familial risk factors and behavioral risk factors; and 2) whether the program appears equally effective across different sociodemographic groups of young people. Participants were randomized to either Teen Outreach or a control group. Measures utilized include self-reported questionnaires that reported demographics including age, grade level, race, predominate household composition, parents' education, and problem behaviors. Results indicate that Teen Outreach appeared most effective as a prevention program with youths who were most at-risk of the specific type of problem behaviors being assessed. The program had the greatest impact in reducing future pregnancies among the group at highest risk of such pregnancies. The likelihood of an additional pregnancy was less than one-fifth as large in the Teen Outreach group as in the comparison group, even after accounting for other background factors that may have also affected pregnancy rates. For academic failure, Teen Outreach demonstrated greater efficacy for youths who had been previously suspended than for those who had not. The program was also found to be more effective for members of racial ethnic minority groups, who were also at greater risk for academic difficulty in this study. Limitations include the high rate of attrition in control groups, reliance on self-reported measures, unknown generalization to other unexamined Teen Outreach sites, and lack of follow-up.

Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: None.

Walsh-Buhi, E. R., Marhekfa, S. L., Wang, W., Debate, R., Perrin, K., Singleton, A., Noble, C. A., Rahman, S., Maness, S. B., Mahony, H., Ziemba, R., Malmi, M., Marwah, E., Hall, K., Turner, D., Blunt-Vinti, H., Noble, S., M., & Daley, E. M. (2016). The Impact of the Teen Outreach Program on Sexual Intentions and Behaviors. Journal of Adolescent Health, 59(3), 283–290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.05.007

Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of Participants: 7,976

Population:

  • Age — Mean=14.56 years
  • Race/Ethnicity — 60% White, 20% Hispanic, 11% Black, and 9% Other
  • Gender — 50% Male and 50% Female
  • Status — Participants were high school students in 9th-12th grade.

Location/Institution: Florida

Summary: (To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Teen Outreach Program (TOP) [now called Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®)] using baseline and follow-up survey data in decreasing pregnancy, risky sexual behavior, and sexual behavior intentions among youth living in nonmetropolitan Florida counties. Participants were randomized to either TOP or a control group. Measures utilized include self-reported questionnaires that reported demographic age, grade level, race, predominate household composition, parents' education, and problem behaviors. Results indicate that in the cohort 1 sample, compared to the control condition, males and females receiving TOP showed lower odds of engaging in recent sex compared to control males and females. Cohort 1 treatment females who did engage in recent sex were less likely to have risky sex. There were fewer significant findings in cohort 2, though TOP females and combined gender had lower odds of risky sex intentions. Overall, cohort 1 females in the TOP condition were the group most likely to benefit from TOP. Limitations include reliance on self-reported measures, generalizability to other states is uncertain, and lack of follow-up.

Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: None.

Moore McBride, A., Chung, S., & Robertson, A. (2016). Preventing academic disengagement through a middle school-based social and emotional learning program. Journal of Experiential Education, 39(4), 370–385. https://doi.org/10.1177/1053825916668901

Type of Study: Pretest–posttest study with a nonequivalent control group (Quasi-experimental)
Number of Participants: 218

Population:

  • Age — Not specified
  • Race/Ethnicity — 177 African American, 10 White, 9 Multiethnic, 8 Other, 2 Native American/Alaskan Native, and 1 Hispanic/Latino
  • Gender — 127 Female and 91 Male
  • Status — Participants were middle school students in 7th–8th grade.

Location/Institution: Two public, Midwestern middle schools

Summary: (To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of the Teen Outreach Program (TOP) [now called Wyman's Teen Outreach Program® (TOP®)] to reduce school disciplinary incidents and increase academic engagement for middle school students. Participants were from either TOP or a comparison school. Measures utilized include the Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale, the Engagement versus Disaffection With Learning (EvsD) Measure, the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scale (PALS), and a 12-item scale on civic duty. Results indicate that adolescents who participated in the yearlong intervention experienced statistically significant reductions in failing grades and skipping classes compared with the comparison group, even while controlling for a variety of demographic factors. Although adolescents from the comparison group did not differ significantly in initial rates of failing grades and skipping classes without permission, there were significant reductions in these negative school behaviors for adolescents from the intervention group by posttest. Limitations include nonrandomization of participants, and the comparison school lost its accreditation shortly after the first intervention year. Therefore, underlying issues within the school may have affected students in ways that are unaccounted for in the design of this study; generalizability to other states is uncertain; and lack of follow-up.

Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: None.

Daley, E. M., Marhefka, S. L., Wang, W., Noble, C. A., Mahony, H., Arzola, S., Singleton, A., Malmi, M., Ziemba, R., Turner, D., Marwah, E., & Walsh-Buhi, E. R. (2019). Longitudinal evaluation of the Teen Outreach Programme: Impacts of a health promotion programme on risky sexual behaviours. Health Education Journal, 78(8), 916–930. https://doi.org/10.1177/0017896919857777

Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of Participants: 4,789

Population:

  • Age — 14–16 years
  • Race/Ethnicity — 61% White, 21% Hispanic/Latino; 9% Black, and 9% Other
  • Gender — 51% Male and 49% Female
  • Status — Participants were middle school students in 7–8th grade.

Location/Institution: Non-metropolitan public high schools in Florida, USA

Summary: (To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
The study used a subset of the same sample as Walsh-Buhi et al. (2016). The purpose of the study was to evaluate the longitudinal impact of Wyman’s Teen Outreach Programme (TOP) on adolescent pregnancy, sexual behavior, risky sex, and sexual intentions in nonmetropolitan high schools. Participants were randomized into TOP or the standard school health curriculum content. Measures utilized include self-reported questionnaires that reported demographics including age, grade level, race, predominate household composition, parents’ education, and problem behaviors and sexual intention. Results indicate that participants in the TOP group were less likely to report ever having sex, recent sex, recent sex without a condom, or intention to have sex in the next year. At 1-year follow-up, TOP participants were less likely to report ever having been pregnant or having got someone pregnant. When examining treatment effects by gender, statistically significant differences were found only for female TOP participants. Limitations include nonrandomization of participants, generalizability to other states is uncertain, high attrition, and design of this study did not include randomization to different levels of program dosage or intensity.

Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: 1 year.

Additional References

Chung, S., & McBride, A. M. (2015). Social and emotional learning in middle school curricula: A service learning model based on positive youth development. Children and Youth Services Review, 53, 192-200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.04.008

McBride, A. M., Robertson, A., & Chung, S. (2014). Assessing the impacts of service learning on middle school students: Wyman's Teen Outreach Program: 2012-2013 academic year report (CSD Research Report 14-09). Washington University. https://csd.wustl.edu/14-09/

Contact Information

Tori Gale
Title: Director, Partner Development
Agency/Affiliation: Wyman's National Network
Website: www.wymancenter.org
Email:
Phone: (314) 712-2368

Date Research Evidence Last Reviewed by CEBC: April 2023

Date Program Content Last Reviewed by Program Staff: December 2023

Date Program Originally Loaded onto CEBC: August 2017