Urban Corps Assessment Package (URCAP) Manual

The Urban Corps Expansion Project (UCEP) enrolls youth aged 18 to 23 who have been unsuccessful in the labor market. They are paid a combination of wages, stipends, and incentives that is at least equal to the minimum wage for at least 25 hours of work and 9 hours of basic education and life skills instruction each week. The program incorporates an assessment package to evaluate its key elements, the Urban Corps Assessment Package (URCAP). This URCAP manual describes the four complementary survey instruments developed for the URCAP. They are the: (1) youth survey; (2) staff report; (3) staff survey; and (4) director's report. The underlying theory and the development of these measures are reviewed, and the scales are presented with supporting psychometric evidence. Appendixes present descriptive statistics on scale items (16 tables), correlations among scales (11 tables), and preliminary evidence from a field test of a model of engagement (1 table). (Contains 24 text tables and 63 references).