Extension of School Opening Hours

This intervention consists of keeping schools open beyond regular school hours, including on weekends, to facilitate children’s and adolescents’ access to activities that complement the school curriculum and contribute to their healthy and comprehensive development. Those actions usually take place in school facilities or community centers, and may include pedagogical reinforcement activities, recreation, sports, social and emotional education workshops, tutoring, among others.

Assistance to Female Victims of Violence

Support programs for female victims of violence, especially those based on therapeutic approaches, offer a better understanding of sexism, the different forms of gender-based violence, the existing protective legislation, and the support services that are available to prevent and break away from abusive relationships.
Some programs also offer guidance on finances and employment, health, and temporary residence to promote women’s economic autonomy and empowerment. Another approach used is activism or awareness-raising to promote access to support services.

Financial Transfers

Financial Transfer programs include money or food transfers, either in cash or through vouchers. Initiatives of this type are usually associated with social protection programs implemented by governments, but can also consist of short-term actions in crisis contexts, such as natural disasters or conflicts, and can be implemented by NGOs. In addition, programs can be aimed directly at women or the head of the household (often represented by a man), or they may refrain from specifying this information.

Redirection of Offenders with Mental Health Problems

Mental health redirection programs seek to suspend the prosecution of persons with mental health disorders and redirect them for participation in specific programs that, while pursuing those individuals’ accountability for their actions, attempt to reduce contact with the criminal justice system with the goal of preventing a worsening of the criminal trajectory of individuals in those situations.

Family Intervention for Juvenile Delinquent Behavior

This type of intervention includes systemic family therapy programs designed to develop skills and is aimed at caregivers (fathers, mothers, or others) of adolescents who have committed crimes. The therapy encourages caregivers to adopt a more proactive attitude and to monitor and supervise the adolescents, so that the strengthening of family relationships leads to positive changes in the routine and behavior of those young people.

Police Youth Redirection Programs

Police Youth Redirection Programs comprise a set of strategies that the police can implement as an alternative to prosecuting young people.
Evidence indicates that an adolescent’s first contact with the justice system tends to accelerate and worsen their criminal trajectory. To reduce or at least postpone this first contact, police initiatives have been created with a focus on redirecting young people who have committed low-risk offenses (vandalism, graffiti, or theft) and have not gone through the criminal justice system.

Mentoring

Mentoring programs aim to forestall or change the trajectory of youth violence. By establishing a bond of trust and reciprocity between the adolescent and a reference person (mentor), they encourage problem resolution involving risk behaviors associated with youth violence.
This type of intervention takes the form of regular mentoring sessions, sometimes accompanied by internships, involvement in community activities, and direct contact with the families and schools of the adolescents taking part in the program.