Opinions that nothing works in juvenile rehabilitation have been based on fairly simplistic literature reviews. In contrast, more recent reviews allow comparisons among treatment effects. In addition, reducing the recidivism rates of chronic juvenile offenders with 5 or more prior arrests from 80 percent to 60 percent would reduce their future crimes by 50 percent and corrections costs by $50,000. These benefits in community safety suggest the usefulness of designing and operating effective treatment programs. VisionQuest works with youth in wilderness camps, on wagon trains, or in other high impact/adventure formats rather than in conventional residential settings. The Paint Creek Youth Center is a small, experimental, staff-secure program. It appears to have put together a fairly unique combination of more conventional treatment methods; together, these approaches create a strong program format. Key Tracking uses community case workers, working in teams of three under an experienced supervisor. Each tracker has primary responsibility for about eight youths after they leave private residential programs or if they had been permitted to remain in the community. They see their youths several times a day and work 70 hours a week. They serve for only 14 months, after which they must either be promoted or move on to another agency. Common characteristics of the three programs include high expectations for success, intensive programming and supervision, accountability, strong management, an emphasis on success, and the use of small group processes and positive role modeling. 10 references