Skills Training Report

Introduction

Prevention programs are important in addressing various risks and protective factors that influence the attitudes and behaviors of adolescents towards drug abuse. Risks and protective factors are the aspects of an individual, environment or personal experience that make it either more likely or less likely that an individual will experience a given problem. Risk factors are associated with the likelihood of drug abuse while protective factors are associated with reduction of drug abuse (Beyers et al, 2004).

Addressing Risks and Protective Factors

Risks and protective factors are the main targets of various prevention programs in the community, school and family settings. The prevention programs are usually designed for an identified group of individuals in the society such as adolescents, young children or adults. There are a number of prevention programs that can be established to enhance protective factors and reduce risks factors. Some of the packages that can be used to address risks and protective factors include families, schools and communities (Rhodes & Jason, 1988).

Family

Family is one of the important institutions that can be used to help reduce risk factors and increase protective factors. Parents are the major players in the family in ensuring that there is an effective prevention program of drug abuse (Sloboda & David, 1997). At family levels, the role of parents towards prevention of drug abuse involves counseling, education and offering of the necessary support to children. A preventive program can help enhance protective factors among the adolescents through teaching parents the effective communication skills to families, appropriate disciplinary actions, and efficient rule enforcement among other family management skills. Parent roles towards drug abuse prevention are very important at the family levels.

Schools

The main focus of the preventive programs at school is on the children academic and social skills. Schools also ensure that there is improved peer relationships and enahanced social behavior among children (Tobler et al, 2000). Teachers play an important role in ensuring that there is an effective school based preventive program aimed at enhancing protective factors and reducing risks factors. The school based programs should be integrated in the school curriculum. This will reduce the likelihood of children engaging in drug abuse and dropping out of schools.

Community

The preventive program that is designed for the community is aimed at educating the entire population within an area of the preventive program. The methods that are used to ensure that there is effective preventive program at the community level include civic education, law enforcement, religious practice and other government legislation on drug abuse (Brady, 2004). The strategies that can be used at the community level include introducing policies that discourages substance abuse such as drug free environment and restricting the use of drugs to specified age group.

Importance of Family, School and Community in Preventive Programs

The family, school and community are important in the prevention program due to their contribution towards reducing risks factors and enhancing protective factors among the youths. This reduces chances of youths engaging in drug abuse. Three main approaches can be applied in families, schools and community in ensuring that there is an effective preventive program. These include intervention measure, prevention measures and instructional measures.

Intervention measures can be described as processes that are solution oriented and structured to convince an individual who is involved in drug abuse to change his or her attitude. This can involve the use of family members, schools and community to demonstrate to the drug addicts the negative effects of drug abuse. The effective intervention helps prevent risks behaviors while enhancing protective behaviors before the occurrence of the drug abuse in younger population (STRATEGY, 2004). Some of the programs included in intervention package include Family School Partnership Intervention, Adolescents Transition Program, the Caring School Community Program and Project towards No Drug Abuse.

Prevention measures are the processes that are aimed at preventing the occurrence of drug abuse hence reducing the chances of developing complications associated with addiction of drugs. Prevention measures mainly focus on individuals, schools and the community. In schools prevention measures are part of the curriculum that is offered to students in classroom. Some of the programs that can be included under this package include Life Skills Training (LST) and Project ALERT.

Instructional measures are involved with education of individuals about drug use disorders in schools, communities and family settings. Instructional packages can be administered in the form of curriculum in schools. Online training program such as web based education sites can also be used to offer training to youths so as to help improve access to the drug abuse education to large population. Examples of instructional packages include Class Centered Program and Adolescents Training and Learning to Avoid Steroid Program.

Content of the Preventive Program

The content of a preventive program consists of the information, methods, development skills and services of the program. The preventive program to be run will target adolescents in the society. The program will be aimed at reducing chances of drug abuse among the adolescents in the society. The program will include information regarding various drugs, their effects, rules, regulations and policies of drug use and abuse.

The effectiveness of a preventive program depends on the skills and methods that are used in the program (Resnick, 2000). The preventive program will be run at family, schools and the community levels. It will use both the prevention, instructional and intervention measures that are aimed at reducing risks factors and encouraging protective factors among the adolescents.

The Preventive Program Sessions

The program will consist of six sessions that are important in preventing high-risk behaviors. The six session of the prevention program will involve the following areas.

(1) A session of developing positive attitudes that discourages risk factors

In this session training will be conducted at the family, school and community levels. The training will focus on the reduction of risks factors at the family levels. It will involve training parents, teachers, youths and the entire community on the various risk factors and how to reduce or avoid them.

(2) A session for the creation of a belief in conventional norms

This will be the second session of the program. It will be mainly focused at developing and improving the positive attitudes of the population in the society (Highet et al, 2002). The session will identify various protective factors and advice on the strategies that can be used to enhance the protective factors so and to reduce the substance abuse among the adolescents.

(3) A session of establishing strong individual’s personal commitment

This session will involve educating of individual people that are the targeted by the program. It will mainly target the adolescents group in the society. It will provide trainings to the youth and the adolescents on the way of developing resilience and personal competence so as to overcome peer pressure and risk factors that can lead to substance abuse (Klepp et al, 1986). The training will be conducted to groups of adolescents in families, schools and community.

(4) A session of bonding with family, community and school

This session will be an important session since it will include the participation of all the schools, families and communities. It will be conducted in the presence of the three entities that include families, schools and communities. The aim of the session will be to ensure that there is cooperation in the society so as to ensure that measures taken towards reduction of substance abuse are effective. It will highlight the role that is to be played by the different entities in the society in reducing risks factors and enhancing protective factors.

(5)A session of developing of positive parental attitude

This session will help in encouraging parents to develop positive attitudes towards the preventive program. Since parents role are important in the effectiveness of the preventive program, various initiatives should be initiated to ensure that they play their roles effectively. In this session various family training will be conducted with the parents being the main audience. Incentives can also be offered to parents at this stage to encourage them to offer parental counseling and support to their children.

(6) A boosting session

A boosting session will be the last session of the program where the success and failures of the program will be evaluated and appropriate measures put in place to address the issue that might have emerged in the process of the preventive program. Weaknesses and strengths of the program will be identified with an aim of improving the performance of the preventive program.

Challenges of the Preventive Program

The preventive program can be subjected to a number of challenges during its implementation. The major challenge can be occasioned with the logistical problems. The program requires huge funds to be used towards the facilitation of various activities included in the program such as training, provision of incentives and production of relevant training materials. It will also require funds that can be used to cater for the remuneration of the training facilitators, travelling expenses and seminar expenses among other logistic expenses.

Lack of cooperation and willingness by the community to take part in the program can also affect the success of the program. Society is composed of various individuals with different cultures and beliefs (Brady, 1995). The program can be negatively perceived by the society hence affects its implementation process. Poor legislation and laws that govern drug and substance abuse can also be detrimental to the program.

Conclusion and Recommendation of Strategies

For the appropriate implementation of the program appropriate strategies should be developed to ensure that there is full participation of the youth in the preventive program. The prevention program should be involved in the formulation of various youth groups in the society. This will enable the program implementation team to reach the youth easily. Incentives should also be provided to the youths, parents, and schools to ensure that they participate in the program. Again youths should be actively involved on the program by ensuring that they participate in important components of the program.

References

Beyers, J. M., Toumbourou, J. W., Catalano, R. F., Arthur, M. W., & Hawkins, J. D. (2004). A cross-national comparison of risk and protective factors for adolescent substance use: the United States and Australia. Journal of Adolescent Health, 35(1), 3-16.

Brady, M. (1995). Culture in treatment, culture as treatment, A critical appraisal of developments in addictions programs for indigenous North Americans and Australians. Social Science & Medicine, 41(11), 1487-1498.

Brady, M. (2004). Indigenous Australia And Alcohol Policy: Meeting/difference with Indifference. University of New South Wales

Highet, N. J., Hickie, I. B., & Davenport, T. A. (2002). Monitoring awareness of and attitudes to depression in Australia, Medical Journal of Australia, 176(10), S63

Klepp, K. I., Halper, A., & Perry, C. L. (1986). The efficacy of peer leaders in drug abuse prevention, Journal of School Health, 56(9), 407-411

Resnick, M. D. (2000). Protective factors, resiliency, and healthy youth development, Adolescent Medicine: State of the Art Reviews, 11(1), 157-164

Rhodes, J. E., & Jason, L. A. (1988). Preventing substance abuse among children and adolescents, Pergamon Press

Sloboda, Z., & David, S. L. (1997). Preventing Drug Use among Children and Adolescents: A Research-Based Guide

STRATEGY, M. C. O. D. (2004). The prevention of substance use, risk and harm in Australia

Tobler, N. S., Roona, M. R., Ochshorn, P., Marshall, D. G., Streke, A. V., & Stackpole, K. M. (2000). School-based adolescent drug prevention programs: 1998 meta-analysis. Journal of primary Prevention, 20(4), 275-336.