Enhancing the Effectiveness of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention Programs for Children

Abstract

Questionnaire responses of eighth-grade students who had made a brief visit to a residential substance (alcohol and drug) abuse treatment center were analyzed to determine the impact of the experience over and above traditional classroom presentations about substance abuse. Questions were designed to test the hypotheses that the brief encounter would result in greater assimilation of and accommodation to more correct information about substance abuse, greater changes in substance abuse constructs, and concomitant changes in attitudes and behaviors. It was expected that visitors would maintain fewer naive, idealized beliefs of the type that facilitate "backing" into participation in substance abuse. Some expected significant differences were found in responses to questions reflecting knowledge and attitudes. The visitors manifested a more realistic, factually based view of substance abuse and substance abusers. It is concluded that intensive prevention/education programs are appropriate for this age group and that the school-based program was significantly enhanced by the brief naturalistic exposure to the people of a therapeutic community. Implications for cognitive learning theory and needed future research are discussed.

Health promoting schools and health promotion in schools: two systematic reviews.

“…Eleven programmes involved two domains: two ethos/environment plus curriculum programmes (It's Your Decision 84 and Primary School Drug Education 85 ). Nine were curriculum plus parents and community programmes (Kylie Mole, [86][87][88] Keep a Clear Mind, 89,90 Hansen A, 91 Biglan A, 92 PRIDE 93 and the Midwestern Prevention Project (also referred to as STAR). [94][95][96] There were also two programmes which appeared from the reviews to cover all three domains -ethos/ environment, parents/community and curriculum (Seattle Social Development Project 58,59 ) -but on appraisal of the papers reporting results of the primary studies, for inclusion in the review of studies of the health promoting school, this was found not to be the case.…”

“…Three studies reported positive effects on attitudes. 87,149,150 One study reported negative effects on boys but no effect on girls 146 -this programme involved 3 years' exposure to teachers trained in effective methods. Six programmes reported no effects on attitudes, and the results of one were unclear.…”