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For Immediate Release

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Honorable Michael Hightower, Vice Chair of Fulton County Commission in Georgia,

The $50 million increase proposed by President Clinton would fund "Challenge America," a new NEA initiative to help local communities provide arts programs for youth. Fulton County Arts Council's "Art at Work" program was one of three test sites for a national YouthARTS study to evaluate the effectiveness of arts programs in preventing delinquent behavior among youth at risk.

Hightower will testify to House Interior Appropriations Subcomittee Chairman Ralph Regula (R-OH) as to the proven positive results of the YouthARTS evaluation project in his community targeted to 14 to 16-year-olds, as well as the results of the other two sites in Portland, Oregon, and San Antonio, Texas.

The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention found the following results in different programs from a test period of three years:

• Court referrals were cut in half
• Delinquent behavior dropped by 16%
• 86% of youth participating could communicate effectively compared to 29% previously

The NEA, the Department of Justice, Americans for the Arts, corporations and foundations jointly funded the program to help local arts agencies and cultural institutions design smarter arts programs to better reach at-risk youth in local communities. One of the primary goals was to ascertain measurable outcomes of preventing youth from getting involved in delinquent behavior by engaging them in community-based arts programs.

Americans for the Arts has distributed 1,000 copies of a YouthARTS toolkit designed to educate other communities on best practices for tapping the arts to address prevention issues among youth at risk.