The so-called Halt Settlement Alcohol (Haltafdoening Alcohol in Dutch) has been applied since 2006. This intervention focuses on young people between twelve and eighteen years of age who have committed either an APV offence1 or a criminal offence while being under the influence of alcohol. After the police have referred the young offender, the intervention often includes several talks with Halt staff and an educational project of approximately six hours at an addiction treatment centre. The parents of the youngster are not only present at the Halt talk(s), but they participate in a parent meeting which is organized by the addiction treatment centres as well. The Halt Settlement Alcohol has been implemented in the Dutch pilot regions of Flevoland, Gelderland, Gooi & Vechtstreek, IJsselland, Limburg Noord, Oost-Brabant and Twente. The former Dutch Ministry of Justice has shown some interest in expanding the Halt Settlement Alcohol to other Halt regions as well, provided the intervention is effective. This must be assessed on the basis of an evaluation of the effects of the intervention. In order to be able to assess the effects of the Halt Settlement Alcohol correctly, it is a prerequisite for the Halt Settlement Alcohol to be implemented rather uniformly in all the regions. That is why a process evaluation was carried out, which focused on the question to what extent the Halt Settlement Alcohol was implemented as intended. At the same time it could be analysed whether the quality criteria of the Dutch Accreditation Committee for Behavioural Interventions (Erkenningscommissie Gedragsinterventies in Dutch) were observed. This report can be regarded as an account of the process evaluation, which was based on the following research questions: 1. Is the intervention applied to the intended target group? Do the police refer the right target group to Halt? (Do the police refer all young offenders who could be eligible for the programme?) and does Halt refer the right target group to the programme organized by the addiction treatment centres? What, if any, problems occur? Do unintended selection effects occur in practice? 2. To what extent is the parents’ and youth’s motivation taken into account? Are any efforts made to enhance their motivation? 3. Have any participants dropped out and if so, what are the drop-out rates? Under what circumstances and for what reasons? Does the group of drop-outs share any specific characteristics? 4. Do staff who implement the Halt component of the programme and staff who implement the educational project component coordinate their activities or do they work together? If so, what does this entail in practice? How do the parties involved value the cooperation? Are problems identified and if so, what kind of problems? 5. Is the Halt Settlement implemented in practice as described in the project plan? Was the original plan adhered to, and if not, why not? 6. Are there any differences among the treatment centres with respect to the implementation approach and if so, what do these differences relate to? 7. To what extent do the parents participate in the programme? If they do not participate, why not? 8. How does the intervention work in practice and is this in line with the assumptions underpinning it? What elements are effective according to those involved? 9. How do staff and participants value the intervention? 10. Are there any bottlenecks which hamper or hinder implementation? If so, what are they? 11. In what respects should the implementation be adapted in order to attain a ‘sound implementation’? The study made use of a range of research activities, including a literature search and document exploration, expert interviews and interviews with regional representatives of the police, Halt Bureaus and the addiction treatment centres. Also, a further analysis was made of the target group of young offenders for whom the Halt Settlement Alcohol is designed and who are referred to the programme in practice. In addition, both the addiction treatment centre staff and the young people and their parents were asked their opinions on some aspects of the Halt Settlement Alcohol. The opinions of the group of young offenders were compared with the answers they had given in the evaluation forms which they had filled out after having completed the educational project. Finally, some educational project meetings for the young offenders and parent meetings were observed, in order to assess whether the way in which the programme was implemented in practice was in line with the regional action plans. (Author/publisher)
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