Release Interviews
Study participants completed a release interview at the time they exited a residential setting of any kind. The release interview was completed with the goal to obtain the youth’s perceptions regarding various aspects of the residential experience and institutional environment (e.g. accounts of program operations and services provided, ratings regarding the participant’s feelings of his/her safety in the facility)
- Release interviews were completed within 30 days prior to or after release from a facility.
- The restricted time-period within which to conduct a release interview reduced the likelihood that intervening events and experiences would skew the participants’ recall of the stay.
- The release interview contained about 165 items in total and took approximately one hour to complete.
- This interview was conducted in a separate session apart from the time point interview so as not to strain the respondent’s attention span.
- Because the interviewer may have only become aware that a residential stay had occurred after the participant was released, it was not always possible to schedule a release interview within the required window surrounding the release date. Thus, we do not have a release interview for every residential stay experienced by a Pathways study participant. Reviewing available data regarding the number of reported institutional stays in our sample to date, we estimate that we obtained a release interview for approximately 54 % of the total number of residential stays experienced by our study participants.