Promising Programs
Aggression Replacement Training
Aggression Replacement Training is recommended as a Promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools program.
Program Description. Aggression Replacement Training (ART) is a program for aggressive adolescents and young children that is administered by teachers or school counselors. The program seeks to enhance interpersonal skill competence, self-mediated ability to control anger, and a youth's concern for the rights and needs of others. The goals of ART are to increase psychological skill competence, anger control, and moral reasoning/social problem skills.
ART is a multimodal, psychoeducational intervention that consists of Skillstreaming, Anger-Control Training, and Moral Reasoning Training. Skillstreaming utilizes modeling, role-playing, performance feedback, and generalization training to teach the curriculum of pro-social skills. In Anger-Control Training, participating youth must bring to each session one or more descriptions of recent anger-arousing experiences and over the duration of the program they are trained in how to respond to their hassles. Moral Reasoning Training is a set of procedures designed to enhance the youth's sense of fairness, justice, and concern with the needs and rights of others.
The rationale behind the program is to arm the student with whatever is needed to behave in constructive, non-aggressive, and still-satisfying ways in his/her school, home, and community. Many youth are skilled in fighting, bullying, intimidating, harassing, and manipulating others. However, they frequently have inadequate skills in more socially desirable behaviors, such as negotiating differences, dealing appropriately with accusations, and responding effectively to failure, teasing, rejection, or anger. ART was designed to intervene in such anti-social behavioral excesses and pro-social behavioral deficits.
Although the ART curriculum has been offered in a variety of lengths, the ten-week sequence is the "core" curriculum. During these ten weeks, participating youth typically attend three one-hour long sessions per week, one session each of Skillstreaming, Anger Control Training, and Moral Reasoning Training. The ART training manual presents program procedures and the curriculum in detail and is available in both English and Spanish editions. ART has been implemented in school, delinquency, and mental health settings.
Professional Development Resources and Program Costs. The developer offers teacher training workshops and a video version of the entire trainer workshop. Additionally, training videos, which may be employed in conjunction with or independent of the training workshops, are also available. These videos concretely illustrate the procedures and management of trainee resistance. Program cost was reported as moderate by the program, although no amount was given. The cost of staff time was identified as the program's greatest expense. However, it was recommended that six teachers each give one hour a week in order to spread the responsibility. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)
Program Quality. Reviewers rated this program highly for its ability to articulate clear and achievable goals and stated that it was reasonable to expect the goals to be achieved in traditional academic settings. Reviewers noted that the goals are appropriate to the target audience and that they readily address the appropriate risk and protective factors. Reviewers found congruence between the level of program effort (intensity, duration) and the identified goals and expected outcomes. The rationale for this program demonstrates a foundation in substantial research and literature and highlights the need for a program of this type.
Evidence of Efficacy. Reviewers found that the Aggression Replacement Training program presented a summary of numerous evaluation studies supportive of the program's claims for adjudicated youth and included three other studies for review. Although some of the studies were comprehensive and used acceptable evaluation designs, psychometrics, and data analysis techniques, reviewers concluded that the program did not provide an evaluation that demonstrated an effect on substance use, violent behavior, or other conduct problems one year or longer beyond baseline. They ascertained that only one study used a behavioral measure, i.e., a three-month follow-up re-arrest rate, and agreed that there was sufficient evidence of a statistically significant short-term positive outcome related to recidivism. Reviewers noted mixed evaluation results, but cited some positive effects on decreasing anger levels in response to minor anger-provoking situations and increasing pro-social skills and social skills knowledge.
The evaluation study of recidivism rates followed 65 youths on a post-release basis, while youths were living in the community, and with few exceptions, returning to school. The study was a three-way comparison of ART provided directly to 13 youths plus the youths' parents or other family members, versus ART provided to 20 youths only, versus a no-ART control group comprised of 32 youths. For the most part, participating youths were assigned to project conditions on a random basis, with departures from randomization becoming necessary on occasion as a function of the multi-site, time-extended nature of the project. Re-arrest rates were tracked during the three months in which youths in the two intervention groups received the three-month ART program and during the three subsequent no-ART months. Meaningful differences in favor of the two intervention groups were found. Youth in both of the ART groups were re-arrested less than were youth not receiving ART; and the ART youth plus family members group did better than the ART youth-only group. A similar study of 38 gang members in an ART intervention group and 27 gang members in a comparison group demonstrated a statistically significant decrease in the re-arrest rate in favor of the ART intervention group.
For Further Information Contact:
Arnold Goldstein, Center for Research on Aggression, Syracuse University
805 South Crouse Avenue, Syracuse, NY 13244
Telephone: (315) 443-9641 Fax: (315) 443-5732
Aggressors, Victims, and Bystanders:Thinking and Acting to Prevent Violence
Aggressors, Victims, and Bystanders: Thinking and Acting to Prevent Violence is recommended as a Promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools program.
Program Description. Aggressors, Victims, and Bystanders (AVB) is a 12-session curriculum designed for use with youth in Grades 6-9. AVB aims to prevent or reduce violence by altering patterns of thought and action that lead individuals to become involved in violence as either aggressors, victims, or bystanders. The program's overarching goal is to encourage young people to examine their roles as aggressors, victims, and bystanders and help them develop problem-solving skills and new ways of thinking about how they might respond to conflict in each of these roles. AVB integrates a public health approach to primary prevention with behavioral science research on social-cognitive foundations of violence.
A range of external and internal factors influences aggression during childhood. Many social experiences that contribute to a child's risk profile for violence have been identified. Similarly, many internal resources that a child acquires can play a pivotal role in determining whether these social experiences will be translated into violent behavior. AVB teaches that the key to preventing violent behavior is learned cognitive patterns that mediate aggressive behavior. Psychological research on children's social-cognitive development recognizes that violence is a socially learned phenomenon.
Twelve classroom sessions deal with violence among peers and the separate but interrelated roles of aggressors, victims, and bystanders that youth play in potentially violent situations. The backbone of the curriculum is the four-step Think-First model of conflict resolution. The model helps students pause and keep cool, understand what is going on before jumping to conclusions, define their problems and goals in ways that will not lead to fights, and generate positive solutions. Each of the twelve classroom sessions includes an agenda, student objectives, points to keep in mind, teacher preparation, procedures, homework, and teacher background information. Many lessons also include additional artistic and creative activities to supplement the core material.
Professional Development Resources and Program Costs. Program developers provide training-of-trainers and teacher-training events for the AVB program. Training fees vary and are negotiated directly between the school and the trainer. Technical assistance for AVB is available through a toll-free number. One copy of the AVB curriculum (materials for each of the classroom sessions) costs $59.95. In addition, an average of $55 per class is needed to photocopy handouts for students. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)
Program Quality. The program was rated very highly by reviewers for the clear correlation between its rationale and the purpose of the program. By focusing on not just the aggressor, but also the victim and the bystander, the program broadens the critical role of each, according to reviewers. The program was also found to promote active engagement with realistic scenarios enabling students to develop real problem-solving skills and a new way of thinking as opposed to reacting in situations that could escalate to violence.
Evidence of Efficacy. Reviewers found that the program provided a good example of an empirically designed and rigorously evaluated school-based intervention for antisocial behavior. The study used random assignment by classroom and existent measures with psychometric data. The intervention study was conducted with 237 students in 23 classes in a large urban school district. Although results were mixed, reviewers reported a statistically significant behavioral change in the treatment group that consisted of a decrease in passive bystander behavior during fight initiation. Regarding changes in risk and protective factors, the program showed generally positive, although not necessarily statistically significant, results in improving social problem-solving skills, decreasing preference for physical and verbal aggression as a problem-solving strategy, and a decreased support for aggression through bystander acceptance. The outcomes approximate the perceived norms regarding drug use and violence.
The study used a pre-post comparison group design with 188 students in Grades 6-8 from three schools in the treatment group and 49 students in Grades 6-8 from three schools in the no-treatment control group. The Beliefs Supporting Violence, Behavioral Intent, and Self-Rated Behavior instruments were used to measure social problem-solving skills, beliefs, behavioral intent, antisocial behavior, self-rated behavior and teacher-rated behavior. The program reported statistically significant student outcomes in favor of the treatment group as follows: a) decrease in acceptance of the belief that violence is okay; b) decrease in intent to respond or engage in physical aggression in response to conflict; c) increase in intent to seek more information in response to conflict; d) increase in intent to avoid further interaction in response to conflict; and e) decrease in self-reported bystander behavior supporting violence.
For Further Information Contact:
Erica Macheca, Center for School Health Programs Education Development Center, Inc.,
55 Chapel Street, Newton, MA 02458
Telephone: (617) 969-7100 Fax: (617) 244-3436
E-mail: EMacheca@edc.org
Web site: http://www.edc.org/thtm
Al's Pals: Kids Making Healthy Choices
Al's Pals: Kids Making Healthy Choices is recommended as a Promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools program.
Program Description. Al's Pals: Kids Making Healthy Choices is an early childhood prevention program designed to promote social and emotional competence in young children ages three to eight. The goals of the program are to promote the protective factor of social and emotional competence in young children, and to decrease the risk factor of early and persistent aggression or anti-social behavior.
Al's Pals is based on the premise that by intervening systematically during the early years when children are first forming patterns of behaviors and attitudes, reductions can be made in the likelihood of their later developing aggressive, anti-social, or violent behavior. The program is heavily based on resiliency research as a framework for the development of an intervention.
This resiliency-based prevention curriculum is designed for delivery by trained teachers. To teach children specific pro-social skills, the lessons utilize a wide range of teaching tools, including guided creative play, brainstorming, puppetry, original songs, and color photographs. Al's Pals consists of 46 lessons, which are delivered two lessons per week over a 23-week period. It is ideal to deliver the program during circle time or in an open reading area. The lessons last approximately fifteen to twenty minutes each and typically consist of two or three activities. Fourteen of the lessons have letters and activities for parents. Optional follow-up activities can be incorporated later in the school day. Tools and techniques are included for teachers to integrate the concepts throughout the school day.
The Curriculum Kit is distributed to the teachers at the training and contains the teacher's guides, puppets, audio tapes or CDs, parent letters, and other materials needed to implement the program.
Professional Development Resources and Program Costs. Teacher training lasts two days and helps teachers prepare to strengthen children's abilities to handle a variety of situations as well as foster a caring, cooperative classroom environment. The training and the curriculum kit are sold together and cost $1,095 per classroom in which there is both a teacher and an instructional assistant. If there is just one teacher present in the classroom, the cost is $845 per classroom. The kit contains few consumable materials, and therefore the cost per child is estimated to be $10 or less. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)
Program Quality. Reviewers noted that this program has identified clear goals that are based on a strong theoretical foundation in resiliency research. The reviewers also found the program content, materials, and expectations to be well matched to the intended audience. They stated that the program actively engages the population by using a wide variety of teaching tools, strategies, and reinforcement activities.
Evidence of Efficacy. Reviewers reported that the evaluation of Al's Pals was comprehensive, addressed research issues on multiple levels, and showed many strengths. They affirmed that the program merited recognition for its solid effort at performing intense program evaluation, even though it had not demonstrated statistically significant results in all areas and had some attrition-related validity issues. The program presented numerous evaluation studies, with a subset of the evaluations that were true experimental designs.
Most evaluation studies used quasi-experimental or experimental pre-post test designs with random assignment at the classroom or school level to assess program effects on child behavior using a project-developed survey with adequate psychometric properties and other published behavioral scales. Reviewers found that strong and appropriate data analysis procedures were used at the individual level to test the effectiveness of the program, with generally statistically significant and positive effects noted. Statistically significant outcomes across the studies included greater gains in social-emotional competence in favor of the treatment groups, comprised of three- and four-year old children or students in Grades K-2, as measured by teacher ratings on child behavior, social interaction, and coping scales. Pre-post testing periods ranged from five to seven months.
For Further Information Contact:
Susan R. Geller, Wingspan, LLC P.O.
Box 29070, Richmond, VA 23242
Telephone: (804) 754-0100 Fax: (804) 754-0200
E-mail: sgeller@wingspanworks.com
Web site: http://wingspanworks.com
All Stars (Core Program)
All Stars (Core Program) is recommended as a Promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools program.
Program Description. All Stars (Core Program) is a universal prevention program for sixth or seventh grade students with a one year booster. However, scheduled one-on-one meetings that are part of the program are adapted to meet the needs of specific subgroups of students, notably social isolates, who are at increased risk for drug use onset. The goal of the program is to prevent substance use and other high-risk behaviors by changing risk and protective factors that statistically account for the emergence of the behavior. Specific objectives are: to increase students' beliefs about peer norms which consider abstinence from drug use to be normal, acceptable, and expected by peers; to increase students' perceptions that substance use and abuse and other high risk behaviors will interfere with their preferred lifestyles; to increase students personal commitment to avoiding the use of drugs and other problem behaviors; to increase the degree to which students are bonded to positive friendship groups and socially attached to the school; and to increase opportunities for positive parental attentiveness.
The program is based on research originally conducted for the Adolescent Alcohol Prevention Trial and the Midwest Prevention Project. This research concluded that normative education for students (where they learn about acceptable social norms and that peer use of alcohol and substances were lower than they might believe) was a more effective strategy than resistance skill training (where students are taught how to avoid negative peer pressure and other forms of social pressure). The core concepts that ground the program are pro-social ideals, group norms and normative beliefs, pro-social bonding, commitment, and parental attentiveness.
Small groups, games, and class discussions form the curriculum of the program. A program manual functions as a "cookbook" for the instructor. Consumable program materials are also included and contain worksheets and certificate templates. In addition to regular sessions, All Stars includes infusion lessons for other teachers to use throughout the school. Program materials have been customized for delivery in three different venues: in schools with regular teachers, in schools with representatives of outside agencies as the teachers, and in community centers with adult leaders.
Professional Development Resources and Program Costs. Teacher training is available for this program. Training consists of a two-day workshop with continuing access to trainers for technical assistance. Program costs for All Stars are as follows: A curriculum guide, which includes reusable props needed to implement the program, costs $165. Essential consumable student materials are packaged for classes of 25 and cost $175 ($7 per student). Materials include worksheets, computer disks, an audio CD (for parents) and a $20 Walmart gift certificate for purchasing extras needed to complete the program. Training costs are $250 per individual or $3,000 for a group of up to 20. These costs do not include materials, transportation or incidental expenses. A current list of prices is available on the web site. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)
Program Quality. Reviewers found goals for All Stars clearly stated with measurable, appropriate objectives. The goals were also found to be in keeping with the risk and protective factors. Reviewers were impressed with the data-driven research that forms the basis of this program. Targeting specific pro-social ideals brings about the desired attainment of program objectives.
Evidence of Efficacy. Reviewers concluded that All Stars provided relevant evidence of efficacy based on a methodologically sound evaluation, which used reliable and valid measures and appropriate data analyses. They noted that the program is young and that the results were short-term and marginally significant. However, they agreed that the program demonstrated promising positive impacts, primarily cognitive risk and protective factors.
The All Stars evaluation included a pre-post, quasi-experimental design; a pre-post, randomized group design with four comparison groups; and a pre-post, follow-up randomized group design with three comparison groups. The quasi-experimental study compared All Stars to another prevention program and reported statistically significant results in favor of All Stars seventh grade students on four risk and protective factors, e.g., intentions, lifestyle incongruence, school attachment, and normative beliefs. The randomized study demonstrated that the normative belief component of All Stars reduced the prevalence of alcohol use and abuse, cigarette smoking, and marijuana use by eighth grade to a statistically significant degree. The follow-up study showed that the All Stars program produced statistically significant short-term reductions in sexual activity among sixth and seventh grade All Stars students. Results also showed that the program was more successfully implemented by classroom teachers than specialists, with statistically significant effects reported for a decrease in drug use and increases in school bonding and strength of commitment for the classroom teacher group.
For Further Information Contact:
William B. Hansen, Tanglewood Research, Inc.
7017 Albert Pick Road, Suite D Greensboro, NC 27409
Telephone: (336) 662-0090 Fax: (336) 662-0099
E-mail: billhansen@tanglewood.net
Web site: http://www.tanglewood.net
Child Development Project
The Child Development Project is recommended as a Promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools program.
Program Description. The Child Development Project (CDP) is a universal, preventive intervention program for elementary schools. A unique aspect of CDP is its comprehensive, ecological approach to intervention that is designed to influence all aspects of the school - curriculum, pedagogy, organization, management, and climate. In effect, when CDP is fully implemented, schooling is the preventative intervention. The central goal of the Child Development Project is to help schools become "caring communities of learners" where there is an environment of caring, supportive, and collaborative relationships.
CDP is based on the assumption that prevention efforts are most likely to be effective when they occur early in development, before maladaptive patterns of behavior have stabilized into mutually reinforcing systems. CDP emphasizes the promotion of positive development among all children and youth rather than the prevention of disorder among those deemed at risk.
This whole-school program consists of an intensive classroom component, a schoolwide component, and a family involvement component. The program components are grounded in four interrelated principles: (1) build stable, warm, and supportive relationships; (2) attend to the social and ethical dimensions of learning; (3) teach to the active mind; and (4) honor intrinsic motivation. Consistent with these four principles, the classroom component contains three major elements: cooperative learning, a literature-based reading and language arts curriculum, and developmental discipline.
Replication of the program requires all CDP curricular materials and a program of staff development spanning three or more years. Program materials include teachers' guides for books in the reading curriculum, a student activity book, a book of anecdotal stories about other CDP teachers, and a video on the language arts curriculum. Additionally, teacher's guides for building community in the classroom, and for implementing a "buddies" program, a guide to creating community in schools, and a family activity book are each accompanied by a video.
Because of the complexity of the CDP program, a new highly-streamlined, lower-cost version is now available. This version involves four components of the program: class meetings, school-wide community-building activities, cross-age buddies program, and parent involvement activities.
Professional Development Resources and Program Costs. A three-day "summer institute" prior to the beginning of each school year and three week-long site visits during each school year are required professional development activities. The staff development program also includes a train-the-trainer component. Assuming a school with 20 teachers, costs are as follows: $20,000 for curriculum materials over three years; $50,000 for professional development services over three years; and approximately $21,000 per year for each of the three years for travel and living expenses associated with professional development activities.
The streamlined version of CDP requires a two-day institute for an entire faculty or a three-day training-of-trainers for a 3 to 5 person school team headed by the principal. Optional follow-up workshops and consultations are available. Staff development costs are $4,000 for the two-day institute, plus travel costs. Three-day training-of-trainers costs are $6,000 for up to five school teams at one site. Materials costs for a typical school are $1,500 to$2,000. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)
Program Quality. Reviewers found that the goals of this program reflect the ideal of education - to create caring communities of active learners. They noted that the goals are achievable by way of instilling the four interrelated principles. The rationale for the program, including the literature cited, was clearly and highly rated by the reviewers. They highlighted the fact that school connectedness, a major part of the program, was considered by research to be a protective factor. Reviewers found the materials appropriate for diverse cultures, classes, and age groups.
Evidence of Efficacy. Reviewers found that the project provided complete information about the efficacy of the multi-site demonstration trial implemented during the 1991 to 92 and through the 1994-95 school years. They agreed that the evaluation results demonstrated numerous statistically significant findings that were sustained beyond one year, but added that the results were demonstrated with the five high implementation schools and their matched counterparts, a subset of the intervention group. Depending on the analyses, 52% to 93% of the outcome variables showed statistically significant effects favoring students in the program, with no effects favoring the matched comparison schools. Positive findings were on outcomes measuring alcohol and marijuana use, delinquent behavior, and pro-social behaviors such as intrinsic academic motivation, task orientation toward learning, commitment to democratic values, acceptance of out groups, conflict resolution skills, and concern for others.
Reviewers noted that the evaluation studies presented results primarily from one major, multi-site study, which used a pre-post, cohort sequential, matched comparison, quasi-experimental evaluation design. Schools were randomized to program and comparison conditions and matched on important demographic characteristics, with 12 intervention and 12 comparison schools. Reviewers concluded that attrition was remarkably low for both conditions, however they found that accretion was a problem because there was a 6% increase in subjects in both the program and comparison groups due to new students or parents finally giving their consents for project participation. The project used author-developed reliable and valid student and teacher questionnaires, and trained observers to conduct unannounced observations of teachers. Appropriate data analysis techniques were employed and interpretations of results appeared to be justified and within the limits of the data.
For Further Information Contact:
Eric Schaps, Developmental Studies Center
2000 Embarcadero, Suite 305, Oakland, CA 94606-5300
Telephone: (510) 533-0213 Fax: (510) 464-3670
E-mail: Eric_Schaps@devstu.org
Web site: http://www.devstu.org
Community of Caring
Community of Caring is recommended as a Promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools program.
Program Description. The primary focus of Community of Caring (CoC) is to strengthen the decision-making skills that young people need to avoid the destructive behaviors that lead to early sexual involvement, teen pregnancy, substance abuse, delinquent behavior, and dropping out of school. This program was initially developed for secondary schools and has now expanded into a full K-12 character education program.
At the heart of the program are the five values of caring, respect, responsibility, trust, and family. Moral literacy and moral ecology are the two major foci of the program. CoC is an all-embracing program with eight essential components: training and support; facilitator; coordinating committee; comprehensive action plan; values across the curriculum; student forums; family and community involvement; and community service. Each component has its own distinct role and accompanying materials. All components work together to structure the social climate to provide positive life experiences for young people.
A program guide, How to Create a Community Caring School, describes detailed steps to implement the program. The facilitator or lead teacher spends 184 hours coordinating the program and helps a school teach the core values through three components: (1) student forums, one day workshops for up to 150 students and adults that discuss problems teens face and identify solutions; (2) service-learning projects for students; and (3) a family involvement piece that encourages parents to become engaged in schools through a list of possible activities. The coordinating committee, appointed by the principal and the lead teacher, plans the CoC program for their school by developing the action plan. A teacher's guide entitled Understanding Your Sexuality and Your Choices is available for the implementation of an abstinence-based sexuality program in secondary schools. This part of the program is a 14-lesson curriculum delivered during regular classroom periods.
Professional Development Resources and Program Costs. Training to implement this program is an intensive two-day introduction to the Community of Caring program. Ideally, the entire faculty and staff of a school are trained. Schools are asked to bring a minimum of 15-20 participants. A single training can accommodate 75 to 100 participants, representing up to five or six schools. Program implementation costs approximately $15,000 for the first year (including training) and $7,500 annually per school for each following year. These figures are based on a student population of 1,000 and include materials. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)
Program Quality. Reviewers found the goals for this program explicit, specific, and measurable. CoC's focus on strengthening the community's value system was seen as a strength by the reviewers. The program was found to have the necessary components to achieve the productive involvement of schools, families, administrators, and other community members. The program's rationale for moral literacy and moral ecology were clearly stated and explained so reviewers were able to identify the relationship between the rationale and achievement of the program's goals. Reviewers also noted that the program effectively engages the intended populations.
Evidence of Efficacy. The program's evaluation design and methodology met most of the criteria for demonstrating evidence of efficacy, although reviewers noted the lack of sufficient information to adequately assess the study's attrition rate, sampling methods, and statistical and clinical significance. The program presented data from one evaluation study using a pre-post comparison group design. Standardized effect scores were used to demonstrate the statistical significance of the study's impact, and effect sizes for program outcomes ranged from 20 to 79 (small to medium impact) across the three school districts participating in the study.
The three-year study included 1,777 ninth grade students in three school systems across the country, representing diverse ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The intervention group consisted of 852 students, and the comparison group consisted of 925 students from the same three school systems. In each school system, a cohort of ninth grade students was monitored for a two-year period beginning in fall 1988 and through spring 1990. Complete data surveys were obtained for approximately 877 students for both 1988 and 1990, a 49.4% rate that the program reported as comparable to the attrition rates for other reputed national studies of school-based primary prevention programs. Positive results in favor of the intervention group included gains in knowledge of risk and consequences related to early sexual activity and other high-risk behaviors; increases in positive attitudes toward sexual and substance abstinence and the value of school and family relationships; lower rates of pregnancies, smoking, drinking, and disciplinary actions; and gains in grade-point averages, school attendance, and enrollment status. The program also reported that students considered as higher-risk than their peers for early pregnancy and substance use were more likely to postpone sexual activity until after high school and less likely to use alcohol or tobacco.
For Further Information Contact:
Brian J. Mooney, Community of Caring, Inc.
1325 G Street NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20005
Telephone: (202) 824-0351 Fax: (202) 824-0351
E-mail: contact@communityofcaring.org
Web site: http://www.communityofcaring.org
Creating Lasting Family Connections
Creating Lasting Family Connections is recommended as a Promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools program.
Program Description. Creating Lasting Family Connections (CLFC) is designed to engage communities, families, and youth in a multi-component prevention strategy that enhances the resiliency factors already exhibited by families and the community where they live and develops new resiliency factors. The goals of the program are to increase these resiliency and protective factors in order to reduce the likelihood that youth will use alcohol, and other drugs (AOD) and to reduce the incidence and prevalence of alcohol and other drug use among youth and their families. CLFC is designed for implementing with youth ages 11 to 17 and their families.
The program builds upon strengths of youth instead of working to reduce the deficits (risk factors) of youth. Some risk factors, such as the socioeconomic status of participants, are difficult to change. Therefore, the focus of CLFC is on enhancing the conditions and experiences that appear to protect youth from initiating AOD use regardless of genetic, socioeconomic status, or other risk factors. Experience has shown that resilient youth can avoid drug use and abuse, even when multiple and severe risk factors are present.
Materials for the program include three parent training modules and three youth training modules. Each of the parent training modules lasts five to six weeks for two and a half hours per week. The modules use discussion and skill-building on three different topics: developing positive parental influences, raising resilient youth, and enhancing personal communication. The youth training modules last five to six weeks each for one and a half to two hours per session. They teach the following topics through discussion, lecture and interactive activities: developing a positive response to alcohol and drug issues, developing independence and responsibility, and enhancing communication skills. Optional communication sessions bring parents and youth together for two or three additional meetings. Role play activities demonstrate the skills learned by both groups.
Professional Development Resources and Program Costs. This program can be implemented at different levels of complexity. The developer offers a training-of-trainers for potential trainers of the CLFC curriculum. This training occurs either over a 5-day or a 10-day period, depending on the experience level of the participants. Minimum staffing is two to four trainers. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)
Program Quality. Reviewers praised the program's logic model and found excellent specificity in the goals for this program. The goals clearly identify the behavioral changes that the program attempts to achieve. Reviewers stated that the goals constitute a worthy conceptual approach to prevention, linking a focus on resiliency and protective factor interventions directly with AOD use. Research and literature on youth prevention is well used and its extensive documentation provides a sound theoretical foundation for the program. The reviewers identified a strong congruence between the multiple component activities and promoting resiliency in family and community settings. These activities also promote effective interactions among a diverse community of students and families.
Evidence of Efficacy. Reviewers found that CLFC used a complex evaluation to assess the impact of a multifaceted program. They agreed that the approach and accompanying evaluation in all three of the identified domains of community, family, and youth made the results from the ongoing evaluation important. The evaluation demonstrated relevant evidence of efficacy with some positive findings related to substance use and parental reports of a decrease in alcohol use and delayed use of alcohol and other drugs.
The outcome evaluation used multiple methods and evaluation designs to test hypotheses about the expected effects of the program on three domains of resiliency (i.e., community, family, and youth domains) and the use of alcohol and other drugs among high-risk youth. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Data analysis examined both direct and moderating effects of the program for six- to seven-month short-term gains and one-year sustained gains. Results demonstrated positive direct effects, moderating effects on family and youth resiliency, and moderating and mediating effects on alcohol and other drug use among youth. Statistically significant outcomes in favor of the treatment group included increases in parent's AOD knowledge and involvement of their youth in setting AOD rules and use of community services for family; greater use of community services by program youth; and delays in onset of alcohol and other drug use, and decreases in the frequency of alcohol and other drug use. These outcomes occurred under certain conditions, namely, changes in parent-level and youth-level resiliency factors addressed by the program.
For Further Information Contact:
Ted N. Strader, Council on Prevention and Education: Substances, Inc. (COPES)
845 Barret Avenue, Louisville, KY 40204
Telephone: (502) 583-6820 Fax: (502) 583-6832
E-mail: tstrader@sprynet.com
Web site: http://www.copes.org
Facing History and Ourselves
Facing History and Ourselves is recommended as a Promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools program.
Program Description. Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO) engages seventh to twelfth grade students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of the historical roots of racism, prejudice, and anti-Semitism. The lessons learned encourage the development of individual competencies that will lead to responsible participation in a democratic society. It works to prevent violence and reduce intolerance among young people as they learn to balance self-interest with a genuine interest in the welfare of others.
The program identifies the cultural roots of racism, anti-Semitism, bigotry, and hatred. It re-sensitizes youth to violence while highlighting examples of those who have made a positive difference. The conceptual framework of FHAO focuses attention on youth's capacities for the following: to understand the role of racial and ethnic differences in their relationships; to engage in positive peer relationships with people who have perspectives and backgrounds different from their own; and to make increasingly mature connections between FHAO materials and their own motivation for engaging with others who are different from themselves.
The program is designed for implementation as a complete unit within a junior or senior high school social studies, history, English, art, or interdisciplinary course. A typical unit is a 10-week or semester-long course that begins with reflection, moves to judgment, and ends with participation. Teachers use inquiry, analysis, and interpretation to create a new course or to enrich an existing course with FHAO materials. Through journal writing, small group work, films, guest speakers, and traditional reading and discussion sessions, students learn to look for alternatives to violent behavior. The program materials enable students to study the complex steps and decisions that can contribute to gradual dehumanization.
FHAO provides resource books for educators and students that can be adapted for different levels and disciplines. FHAO strongly suggests that a team of teachers (preferably in English and History), a school administrator, and a school librarian work together in implementing the program.
Professional Development Resources and Program Costs. Facing History and Ourselves provides flexible educator training tailored to each setting, student population, and community. Educators may attend a one to two-day introductory workshop ($150) or a weeklong institute ($575). Local in-service expenses include $600 per day for a program associate (plus any travel and lodging expenses) and $15 per participant for materials. Classroom sets of resource books cost $15 per book for ten or more books. Video materials and other resources are loaned without charge to FHAO educators. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)
Program Quality. Reviewers noted that the course content is well defined and age appropriate for the designated populations. Also, teachers are able to select materials appropriate for their particular classroom, which promotes effective interaction among diverse groups of students. The program processes actively engage students in multiple learning strategies and provides ample opportunity to integrate the skills learned into real world situations. According to reviewers, the implementation design for this program, which calls for pre- and in-service training and technical assistance, is excellent. Institutes and follow-up activities as well as numerous resources for teachers are available and their use is encouraged.
Evidence of Efficacy. Reviewers found that the evaluation of Facing History and Ourselves used a strong, quasi-experimental design with adequate controls for internal validity and appropriate statistical analysis. Although the evaluation lacks a follow-up study at one or two years, the positive finding of a strong trend in the reduction in self-reported fighting and positive effects related to risk and protective factors bolster both the efficacy of the program and the validity of the underlying theoretical base. Reviewers noted that the evaluation was conducted with eighth grade students only.
The evaluation study used a pre-post comparison group design with 246 eighth grade students from 14 classes at four school sites in the intervention group and 163 eighth grade students from eight classes at five schools sites in the same community in the comparison group. Measures included a social competencies measure and a racism scale. Students in the intervention group demonstrated, to a statistically significant degree, a greater decrease in racism and a greater increase in social competencies than did comparison students.
For Further Information Contact:
Terry Tollefson, Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc.
16 Hurd Road, Brookline, MA 02445
Telephone: (617) 232-1595 Fax: (617) 232-0281
E-mail: Terry_Tollefson@facing.org
Web site: http://www.facing.org
Growing Healthy
Growing Healthy is recommended as a Promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools program.
Program Description. Growing Healthy is a comprehensive health education curriculum for students in Kindergarten through Grade 6. Growing Healthy's extensive program goals are related to numerous life skills and physical health. The program teaches children several core elements that help them resist social pressures to smoke and to use alcohol or other drugs. These core elements include fundamental knowledge of the biology of the human body; principles of health and illness; and an understanding of health in the larger family, community, and even national context.
The curriculum rests on the premise that if children understand how their bodies work and appreciate a range of factors-biological, social, and environmental-that affect their health, they will be more likely to establish good habits during this formative period.
Growing Healthy is a sequential, health education program that transcends the traditional hygiene and disease-focused approaches. It stresses personal health habits and values, self-esteem, and decision-making skills. Growing Healthy is intended to be integrated with other curriculum areas such as science, reading, writing, mathematics, social studies, music, and art. The program meets the seven standards and performance indicators set forth in the National Health Education Standards.
The Curriculum Guide for each grade level sets out 43 to 51 lessons per grade level, and each grade level is divided into six phases. The curriculum can be taught several ways: two to three times per week through the academic year, several times per week for one semester, or fully integrated across subject areas. Full implementation of all phases of Growing Healthy requires approximately 50 hours of classroom instruction.
Professional Development Resources and Program Costs. Three to five days of teacher training is a required element and occurs at the local level. (Growing Healthy has a Master Training Program that prepares "Masters" to train the teachers and trainers at the state and local levels.) Technical assistance is also available for teachers and facilitators. Teacher training is approximately $130 per participant.
Curriculum Guides with black-line masters cost $174.95 for each grade level. Ready-made posters and charts range from $39.95 to $56.95, depending on grade level. Peripheral materials range from $850 to $2,650, depending on grade level, and may include videos, anatomical models, books, games, and a wide variety of "hands-on" items used to discover and explore health concepts. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)
Program Quality. This program received high marks for its clear goals, solid rationale, and appropriate materials. It was praised for its systemic approach to teaching health through the ten content areas recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Materials were also highly rated for being linguistically and culturally appropriate.
Evidence of Efficacy. Reviewers found that the evaluation of Growing Healthy was a thorough and complete assessment of the program effects for the stated outcomes. Reviewers noted that Growing Healthy provided excellent reporting of the reliability of the project-developed measures and used appropriate data analysis methods, particularly to control for pre-test differences. Positive effects in favor of Growing Healthy participants were evident in the areas of overall health knowledge, attitudes, and practices. In the two-year study, reviewers found evidence of a positive effect on behavior, namely statistically significant lower levels of self-reported incidences of smoking among seventh grade program participants.
The program presented evidence from two quasi-experimental studies to assess outcomes for this comprehensive health education program with strands related to drug abuse and violence. The two-year study used a pre-post, comparison group design with 1,071 classrooms, including 30,000 students in Grades 4-7 from 74 school districts in 20 states during the 1982-83 and 1983-84 school years. The treatment group consisted of 688 classrooms that were taught either the Growing Healthy curriculum or one of three other health education curricula; and the comparison group consisted of 383 classrooms that received no health education. The ten-year longitudinal study used a post-test only, comparison group design with 600 students from two suburban school districts, who were re-tested in first, second, third, fifth, sixth, and seventh grades, and also in Grades 9-12.
Growing Healthy students exhibited statistically significant outcomes in the two-year study, including greater knowledge about health, more positive attitudes toward good health practices, and more negative attitudes toward smoking than students in a traditional health course comparison group. In the ten-year study, Growing Healthy students demonstrated statistically significant lower levels of experimentation with alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs as high school students than did comparison group students.
For Further Information Contact:
Director of Education, National Center for Health Education
72 Spring Street, Suite 208, New York, NY 10012-4019
Telephone: (212) 334-9470 Fax: (212) 334-9845
E-mail: nche@nche.org
Web site: http://www.nche.org
I Can Problem Solve
I Can Problem Solve is recommended as a Promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools program.
Program Description. I Can Problem Solve (ICPS), originally called Interpersonal Cognitive Problem Solving, is a primary prevention curriculum that offers teachers and parents concrete skills for helping children ages four to seven learn to resolve typical, everyday interpersonal problems. This school-based program is designed to teach children how to think, not what to think. The goal of the program was to test Spivack's hypothesis that there is a set of interpersonal cognitive skills that mediate adjustment, not by direct modification of behavior itself, but by enhancing the child's interpersonal thinking style.
Research has clearly documented that beginning as early as preschool and escalating in the middle childhood years antisocial behaviors, poor impulse control, poor peer relations, and lack of empathy are high-risk predictors of subsequent delinquency and substance abuse, with delinquency and substance abuse being highly correlated outcomes. The rationale behind ICPS is based on the hypothesis that an individual who becomes preoccupied with the end-goal of a motivated act rather than how to obtain it, or does not consider consequences and the possibility of alternative routes to the goal, is an individual who may make impulsive mistakes, become frustrated or aggressive, or evade the problem entirely by withdrawing.
Program materials include separate manuals for preschool and for kindergarten/primary grades and begin with sequenced games and dialogues to teach three levels of language and thinking related to behavior adjustment: the first level teaches basic word concepts that set the stage for later problem solving; the second level has students focus on their own and others' feelings; and the final level teaches students skills in identifying alternative solutions and consequential thinking. Lessons are conducted daily in the classroom by the teachers and last approximately 20 to 40 minutes per day for four months. In preschool, lessons are conducted during story time. Teachers continue to use ICPS skills throughout the day, especially when conflicts arise. Instead of demanding, suggesting, or even explaining to children what they should do and why, children learn to think for themselves what they should and should not do and why.
Professional Development Resources and Program Costs. Training can follow several models. Some teachers have gone through onsite, one-on-one training for program directors. Others have gone through one- or two-day workshops with classroom visits as follow-up. Still others have been trained so that they can train their colleagues in the next grade level, who can also train their colleagues in subsequent grade levels (up to sixth grade). While negotiable, most trainers charge $1,000 for a full day workshop and $1,500 to $2,000 for a two-day workshop. Presentations in local schools range from $250 to $500, depending upon distance traveled.
Each teacher and teacher's aide should have their own ICPS Teachers Manual. The manuals cost $39.95 each and contain pictures that can be held up, used as overheads, or duplicated for each child to hold and color. The only other materials needed are puppets and storybooks, materials most classrooms already have. Parent trainers need one manual for themselves and one for each participating parent, who then implements exercises with their child at home. The parent manual, Raising a Thinking Child Workbook, costs $19.95. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)
Program Quality. According to reviewers, the goals of the program are clearly stated and offer a fine example of a curriculum based on well-grounded research theory. The program was highly rated for its ability to offer a practical approach to help most children learn to evaluate and deal with problems. Reviewers state that the materials appear to be free of any cultural or ethnic bias. They also found that the materials and activities encourage equal participation of all students.
Evidence of Efficacy. The evaluation design for this program used quasi-experimental, pre-post and follow-up test studies, with assignment to groups by classes and establishment of the equivalence of the no-treatment comparison groups. Reviewers noted concerns about the high rates of attrition in the various studies, but determined that the sample sizes remained sufficient for conclusive statistical analysis. Reviewers found that the program had addressed risk factors associated with drug use and violence in an indirect way, by demonstrating an impact on problem-solving and, thereby, on social skills and impulsive and aggressive behavior. Reviewers agreed that the overall evaluation had a strong design, instruments, and findings and concluded that the limitations of the studies had not undermined the validity of the evaluation.
Reviewers found that the comparison studies showed statistically significant findings and some evidence of clinical significance in favor of the treatment group. For example, one study provided evidence that ICPS nursery school and kindergarten children showed statistically significant improvement in solution and consequential skills and were superior to comparison students whether ICPS-trained in nursery only, kindergarten only, or both years. The program reported that the most consistent statistically significant behavioral results were found on ratings by independent observers who had no knowledge of children's behavior in previous years.
For Further Information Contact:
Myrna B. Shure, MCP Hahnemann University Department of Clinical and Health Psychology
245 N. Fifteenth Street, MS 626, Philadelphia, PA 19102-1192
Telephone: (215) 762-7205 Fax: (215) 762-8625
E-mail: mshure@drexel.edu
Web site: http://www.researchpress.com
Let Each One Teach One Mentor Program
Let Each One Teach One Mentor Program is recommended as a Promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools program.
Program Description. Let Each One Teach One Mentor Program (LEOTO) is a mentoring program specifically for at-risk, Black male adolescents. The goals of the program center on increasing academic success of students. The program measures its effectiveness by monitoring improved grades, enhanced self-efficacy, improved behavioral conduct, improved self-perceptions, fewer office referrals, fewer suspensions, and improved attendance.
Black youth in America, especially males, have an urgent need for the advancement of strategies and interventions for overcoming obstacles to healthy development and achievement. This program incorporates concepts and instruments developed by Bandura for self-efficacy, including modeling-providing a role model mentor to effect changes in academic success. This program and its accompanying study represent the beginnings of a research area that empirically addresses whether mentoring enhances academic attainment and success in school for a minority population.
Weekly session lengths are currently for 60 minutes. Presently, mentors are brought to the mentee's schools where they meet from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm. The duration of the intervention sessions currently ranges from 16 to 20 weeks. This project has now extended downward to provide assistance to elementary students. Mentors are currently multi-ethnic with over 85% Black males and females. Mentors are eligible for community service Book Scholarship awards.
Professional Development Resources and Program Costs. Training for this program consists of helping skills, self-regulation development, goal setting/monitoring, and strategies for helping with academic areas. Transportation costs (school buses) range from $400 to $800 for a 16 to 20 week session depending on the proximity of the participating schools. Supplies and reinforcement for students who reach set goals (materials needed during the mentoring sessions that are not available through the schools) range from $200 to $300. The cost for the community service Book Scholarship awards ranges from $2,000 to $4,000 dollars depending on the number of eligible mentors; donations for these awards are sought. A psychologist coordinates the project 2.5 days a week and his/her salary would need to be factored into the final cost. Donations for food are another additional cost. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)
Program Quality. The goals for this program were found to be appropriate for the identified population and were effectively designed for a very specific audience. The content of this program was found by reviewers to be strongly focused on the actual relationship between the mentor and the youth. Supporting research in the submission reflects the importance of this relationship on the target group.
Evidence of Efficacy. Reviewers concluded that the evaluation of Let Each One Teach One Mentor Program had many strengths and identified statistically significant treatment effects on teacher ratings of conduct at the immediate post-test, although the research design had a short follow-up post-test period that was less than one year post-baseline. Methodologically sound evaluation components included the use of a quasi-experimental partially randomized design with a wait-list control group and an at-risk rating scale to select the most high-risk youth. Reviewers found that the design was strong enough to eliminate threats to internal validity when comparing the outcomes of the control group and the two treatment groups and that the three groups were statistically compared on demographic measures as well as outcome measures at pre-test. The evaluation used well-known measures of their constructs of interest and provided three different data sources, e.g., teacher, self-report, and official records. Analytic techniques were appropriately matched to the research design and type of data used in the evaluation.
Fifty-five males in sixth through eighth grade participated in the study and comprised two treatment groups and a wait-list control group. Treatment Group 1 received mentoring intervention characterized by support and self-regulation, and Treatment Group 2 was characterized solely by support intervention. Students were paired with high achieving male mentors from two high schools. Treatment dyads occurred on eight consecutive weeks with dependent variables measured prior to the first mentoring session and after the eighth session. Results showed statistically significant effects favoring Treatment Group 1 over the wait-list group on the outcome measures of self-efficacy, grade-point average, and teacher conduct ratings. No significant differences were found between Treatment Groups 1 and 2.
For Further Information Contact:
Vicki Tomlin, Denver Public Schools
4051 S. Wabash Street, Denver, CO 80237
Telephone: (303) 796-0414 Fax: (303) 796-8071
E-mail: vtomlin@uswest.net
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