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 skills, self-mediated ability to control anger, and a youth's concern for the rights and needs of others. The goal of ART is to improve psychological skill competence, anger control, and moral reasoning and social problem-solving skills.

ART is a multimodal, psychoeducational intervention for kindergarten through 12th grade that consists of skill-streaming, anger-control training, and training in moral reasoning. Skill-streaming utilizes modeling, role-playing, performance feedback, and generalization training to teach the curriculum of pro-social skills. In anger-control training, participating youths 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 is designed to enhance the youths' sense of fairness and justice regarding the needs and rights of others.

The rationale behind the program is to arm students with whatever is needed to behave in constructive, nonaggressive, and still-satisfying ways in school, at home, and in the community. Many youths 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 antisocial behavioral excesses and pro-social behavioral deficits.

Although the ART curriculum has been offered in a variety of lengths, the 10-week sequence is the "core" curriculum. During these 10 weeks, participating youths typically attend three 1-hour sessions per week, one session each of skill-streaming, anger-control training, and training in moral reasoning. 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.

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 were appropriate to the target audience and that they readily addressed 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 demonstrated a foundation in substantial research and literature and highlighted the need for a program of this type.

Evidence of Efficacy

Reviewers found that the ART program presented a summary of numerous evaluation studies supportive of its 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-that is, a three-month follow-up rearrest 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, vs. ART provided to 20 youths only, vs. a no-ART control group comprising 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 multisite, time-extended nature of the project. Rearrest rates were tracked during the three months in which youths in the two intervention groups received the ART program and during the three subsequent no-ART months. Meaningful differences in favor of the two intervention groups were found. Youths in both of the ART groups were rearrested less than were youths not receiving ART; and the ART youths-plus-family-members group did better than the ART youths-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 rearrest rate in favor of the ART intervention group.

Professional Development Resources and Program Costs

The developer offers two-day teacher training workshops for $5,000 plus expenses. An unlimited number of participants can attend. Train the trainer is available for $7,500 and takes three days. The ART book costs $24. Training videos, which may be employed in conjunction with or independent of the workshops, are also available. These videos concretely illustrate the procedures and management of trainee resistance. 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.)

For Further Information

Arnold Goldstein
Aggression Replacement Training
Center for Research on Aggression
Syracuse University
805 South Crouse Ave.
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: Thinking and Acting to Prevent Violence (AVB) is a 12-session curriculum designed for use with youths in grades six to nine. 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 the 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 youths play in potentially violent situations. Each session is to be delivered no more than one week after the previous one. 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 12 classroom sessions includes an agenda, student objectives, points to keep in mind, teacher preparation, procedures, homework, and teacher background information. Many lessons include additional artistic and creative activities to supplement the core material.

Program Quality

Reviewers rated the program very highly for the clear correlation between its rationale and its purpose. By focusing not just on the aggressor, but also on the victim and the bystander, the program broadened 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 rather than 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 assignments 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 in the treatment group a statistically significant behavioral change 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 decreasing 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 six to eight from three schools in the treatment group and 49 students in grades six to eight from three schools in the no-treatment control group. The program reported the following statistically significant student outcomes in favor of the treatment group: 1) a decrease in acceptance of the belief that violence is OK; 2) a decrease in intent to respond or engage in physical aggression when faced with conflict; 3) an increase in intent to seek more information in response to conflict; 4) an increase in intent to avoid further interaction in response to conflict; and 5) a decrease in self-reported bystander behavior supporting violence.

Professional Development Resources and Program Costs

Program developers provide train the trainer 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 telephone number. One copy of the AVB curriculum (materials for each of the classroom sessions) costs $59.95. This amount includes lesson plans, reproducible student handouts, and transparencies. Photocopied handouts for students add to the cost. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)

For Further Information

Erica Macheca
Aggressors, Victims, and Bystanders: Thinking and Acting to Prevent Violence
Center for School Health Programs
Education Development Center, Inc.
55 Chapel St.
Newton, MA 02458

Telephone: 617-969-7100
Fax: 617-244-3436

E-mail: EMacheca@edc.org

Web site: http://www.thtm.org/

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 children ages 3 to 8. The goals of the program are 1) to promote the protective factor of social and emotional competence in young children and 2) to decrease the risk factor of early and persistent aggression or antisocial behavior.

Al's Pals is based on the premise that intervening systematically in children's lives during their early years, when they are first forming patterns of behaviors and attitudes, the likelihood that they will later develop aggressive, antisocial, or violent behavior is reduced. The program is based heavily 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 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 23 weeks. It is ideal to deliver the program during circle time or in an open reading area. The lessons last 15 to 20 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 day.

A curriculum kit is distributed at the training and contains the teacher's manuals, puppets, audiotapes or CDs, parent letters, and other materials needed to implement the program.

Program Quality

Reviewers noted that this program identified clear goals 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 engaged 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 to perform an 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 assignments at the classroom or school level to assess program effects on child behavior. They used 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, comprising 3- and 4-year-old children or students in kindergarten through second grade, as measured by teacher ratings on child behavior, social interaction, and coping scales. Pre-post testing periods ranged from five to seven months.

Professional Development Resources and Program Costs

Teacher training lasts two days and prepares teachers to strengthen the ability of children to handle a variety of situations and to foster a caring, cooperative classroom environment. The training and the curriculum kits are sold together and cost $1,095 per class when taught by both a teacher and an instructional assistant. If there is just one teacher in the classroom, the cost is $845 per class. The kit contains few consumable materials; therefore, the cost per child is estimated to be about $10. Each kit includes 46-lesson manuals, puppets, audiotapes or CDs, parent letters, songbooks, school-to-home message pads, and a puppet house. Training is delivered to up to 30 participants and can be on-site. Travel expenses are additional. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)

For Further Information

Susan R. Geller
Al's Pals: Kids Making Healthy Choices
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. 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, so that they consider abstinence from drug use to be normal, acceptable, and expected by peers; to heighten students' perceptions that substance use and abuse and other high-risk behaviors will interfere with their preferred lifestyles; to increase students' personal commitment to avoid drug use 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 about peer use of alcohol and substances, which was less than they might believe) was a more effective strategy than resistance skill training (in which students learn 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. Thirteen regular sessions are 45 minutes long each. Instructors meet with students one-on-one, two or three times a semester. There are also two small-group meetings with peer leaders, eight regular booster sessions, and one one-on-one booster session. 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 teachers, and in community centers with adult leaders.

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 formed the basis of this program. Targeting specific pro-social ideals resulted in the 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 was 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 with another prevention program and reported statistically significant results in favor of All Stars seventh-grade students on four risk and protective factors (i.e., 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 All Stars students 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 implemented more successfully by classroom teachers than by specialists, with statistically significant effects reported for decreases in drug use and increases in school bonding and the strength of commitment for the classroom teacher group.

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 program manual, which includes reusable props needed to implement the program, costs $165; essential consumable student materials packaged for classes of 25 cost $175 ($7 per student) and include worksheets, computer disks, and an audio CD (for parents). There is also a $20 Wal-Mart gift certificate for purchasing extra supplies. Booster sessions are additional. 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.

For Further Information

William B. Hansen
All Stars (Core Program)
Tanglewood Research, Inc.
7017 Albert Pick Rd., Suite D
Greensboro, NC 27409

Telephone: 336-662-0090
Fax: 336-662-0099

E-mail: billhansen@tanglewood.net

Web site: http://www.tanglewood.net

Caring School Community Program

The Caring School Community Program is recommended as a promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools program.

Program Description

The Caring School Community Program (formerly the Child Development Project) is a universal, preventive intervention program for elementary schools. A unique aspect of the Caring School Community Program is its comprehensive, ecological approach to intervention that is designed to influence all aspects of the school-its curriculum, pedagogy, organization, management, and climate. In effect, when the Caring School Community Program is fully implemented, schooling is the preventive intervention. The central goal of the Caring School Community Program is to help schools become "caring communities of learners," where there is an environment of caring, supportive, and collaborative relationships.

The Caring School Community Program is based on the assumption that prevention efforts are most effective when they occur early in development, before maladaptive patterns of behavior have stabilized into mutually reinforcing systems. The program emphasizes the promotion of positive development among all children and youths 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 based on these four interrelated actions: 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 acts, 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 Caring School Community Program curricular materials and a program of staff development spanning three or more years. Program materials include teacher's guides for books in the reading curriculum, a student activity book, a book of anecdotal stories about other program 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 original Child Development Project, a new highly streamlined, lower-cost version is now available. This version involves four components of the program: class meetings, schoolwide community-building activities, cross-age buddies program, and parent involvement activities.

Program Quality

Reviewers found that the goals of this program reflected the ideal of education: to create caring communities of active learners. They noted that the goals were 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 researchers 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 multisite demonstration trial implemented during the 1991-92 and 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 analysis, 52 percent to 93 percent 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, multisite 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 percent increase in subjects in both the program and the comparison groups due to new students or parents finally giving their consent for project participation. The project used author-developed, reliable, and valid questionnaires for students and teachers. The project trained observers to conduct unannounced visits to the teachers. Appropriate data analysis techniques were employed, and interpretations of results appeared to be justified and within the limits of the data.

Professional Development Resources and Program Costs

Costs described are for the streamlined version of the program. A two-day "summer institute" prior to the beginning of each school year costs $4,000. The staff development program also includes a train the trainer component for $6,000 for the three-day workshop. Materials, including teacher's guides, a student activity book, and a language arts video, cost $1,500 to $2,000 per school. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)

For Further Information

Eric Schaps
Caring School Community Program
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 the Community of Caring (CoC) program 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 following: caring, respect, responsibility, trust, and family. The program focuses primarily on moral literacy and moral ecology. CoC is an all-embracing program with eight essential components: training and support, a facilitator, a coordinating committee, a 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 called 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 helping a school teach the core values through the following components: 1) student forums, which are one-day workshops for up to 150 students and adults to discuss problems that teens face and to 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 its school by developing the action plan. A teacher's guide titled 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.

Program Quality

Reviewers found the goals for this program explicit, specific, and measurable; they viewed CoC's focus on strengthening the community's value system as a strong feature of the program. 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 was 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 engaged 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 assess adequately 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 consisted of 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 two years, from fall 1988 through spring 1990. Complete data surveys were obtained for approximately 877 students for both 1988 and 1990, a 49.4 percent 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 the risks and consequences related to early sexual activity and other high-risk behaviors; increases in positive attitudes toward sexual and substance abstinence; 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 at higher risk than their peers for early pregnancy and substance use were, after the program, more likely to postpone sexual activity until after high school and less likely to use alcohol or tobacco.

Professional Development Resources and Program Costs

The program costs $6,250 to $8,250 per year for 1,000 students in a secondary school and $4,000 to $5,500 per year for 500 elementary school students. Training costs $7,500 for up to 100 participants. Training to implement this program involves an intensive two-day introduction to the CoC program. Ideally, the entire faculty should receive training. Schools are asked to bring a minimum of 15 participants. A single training can accommodate 75 to 100 participants, representing up to five or six schools. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)

For Further Information

Brian J. Mooney
Community of Caring
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 youths in a multicomponent 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 to reduce the likelihood that youths will use alcohol and other drugs (AOD) and to reduce the incidence and prevalence of AOD use among youths and their families. CLFC is designed for implementing with youths ages 11 to 17 and their families.

The program builds upon the strengths of youths instead of working to reduce their deficits (risk factors). 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 youths from initiating AOD use regardless of genetic, socioeconomic, and other risk factors. Experience has shown that resilient youths can avoid drug use, 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 topics: developing positive parental influences, raising resilient youths, 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 together parents and youths for two or three additional meetings. Role-play activities demonstrate the skills learned by both groups.

Program Quality

Reviewers praised the program's logic model and found excellent specificity in its goals. The goals clearly identified the behavioral changes that the program attempted to achieve. Reviewers stated that the goals constituted a worthy conceptual approach to prevention, linking a focus on resiliency and protective-factor interventions directly with AOD use. Research findings and literature on youth prevention were well used, and extensive documentation provided 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 promoted effective interactions among the members of 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 youths 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 AOD use.

The outcome evaluation used multiple methods and evaluation designs to test hypotheses about the expected effects of the program on the three domains of resiliency (community, family, and youth) and the use of AOD among high-risk youths. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Data analysis examined both the direct and the 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 AOD use among youths. Statistically significant outcomes in favor of the treatment group included increases in parents' AOD knowledge, the involvement of their sons or daughters in setting AOD rules, and the use of community services for families. The program also led to greater use of community services by program youths, delays in the onset of AOD use, and decreases in the frequency of AOD use. These outcomes occurred under certain conditions-namely, changes in parent-level and youth-level resiliency factors addressed by the program.

Professional Development Resources and Program Costs

This program can be implemented at different levels of complexity. The developer offers a train the trainer workshop for potential trainers of the CLFC curriculum. This training occurs over either a five-day or a 10-day period, depending on the experience level of the participants. A five-day training is $750 per participant; a 10-day session is $1,500. The cost of the curriculum kit is $1,224, which includes manuals and notebooks for youths and parents. Minimum staffing is two to four trainers. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)

For Further Information

Ted N. Strader
Creating Lasting Family Connections
Council on Prevention and Education: Substances, Inc.
845 Barret Ave.
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 encourage the development of individual competencies that will lead to responsible participation in a democratic society. The program 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 resensitizes youths to violence while highlighting examples of individuals who have made a positive difference. The conceptual framework of FHAO focuses attention on the capacities of youths to understand the effect 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 motivations 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 to implement the program.

Program Quality

Reviewers noted that the course content was well defined and age appropriate for the designated populations. Also, teachers were able to select materials that were appropriate for their particular classroom, which promoted effective interaction among diverse groups of students. The program processes actively engaged students in multiple learning strategies and provided ample opportunities to practice their skills in real-world situations. According to reviewers, the implementation design for this program, which called for pre- and in-service training and technical assistance, was excellent. Institutes and follow-up activities, as well as numerous resources for teachers, were available.

Evidence of Efficacy

Reviewers found that the evaluation of FHAO used a strong, quasi-experimental design with adequate controls for internal validity and appropriate statistical analysis. Although the evaluation lacked a follow-up study at one or two years, there was a positive finding of a strong trend in the reduction in self-reported fighting and positive effects related to risk and protective factors; this trend bolstered 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 school 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 the comparison group.

Professional Development Resources and Program Costs

FHAO 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 10 or more. Video materials and other resources are loaned without charge to FHAO educators. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)

For Further Information

Terry Tollefson
Facing History and Ourselves
Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc.
16 Hurd Rd.
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 K-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 and other drugs. These core elements include a 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 consists of 43 to 51 lessons per grade level, and each grade level is divided into six phases. Sessions are 45 minutes long. The curriculum can be taught several ways: two or three times per week through the academic year, several times per week for one semester, and fully integrated across subject areas. Full implementation of all phases of Growing Healthy requires approximately 50 hours of classroom instruction.

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 10 content areas recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Materials were also rated highly 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. They 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.

Evidence was presented 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 four to seven from 74 school districts in 20 states during the 1982-83 and 1983-84 school years. The treatment group consisted of 688 classrooms. The students were taught either the Growing Healthy curriculum or one of three other health education curricula. The comparison group consisted of 383 classrooms that received no health education. The 10-year longitudinal study used a post-test-only, comparison group design with 600 students from two suburban school districts, who were retested in first, second, third, fifth, sixth, and seventh grades, and also in grades nine through 12.

Growing Healthy students exhibited statistically significant outcomes in the two-year study, including greater knowledge about health, more positive attitudes about good health practices, and more negative attitudes toward smoking than did students in a traditional health course comparison group. In the 10-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.

Professional Development Resources and Program Costs

Three to five days of teacher training are required and occur locally. (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. The cost of a grade-level CD-Rom is $120 per teacher. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)

For Further Information

Director of Education
Growing Healthy
National Center for Health Education
72 Spring St., 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

Guiding Good Choices

Guiding Good Choices (formerly known as Preparing for the Drug-Free Years) is recommended as a promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools program.

Program Description

Guiding Good Choices (GGC) is designed to assist parents in reducing risks in their families that could contribute to alcohol and drug abuse. The goals of the program are to empower parents of children ages 9 to 14 (grades 4-8) to reduce the risk that their children will develop problems with drugs and alcohol in adolescence and to enhance protective parent-child interactions.

GGC is guided theoretically by the social development model integrating social control theory and social learning theory. Offered to parents in schools, churches, homes, hospitals, and other locations, this five-session, multimedia skills training program is designed to be delivered weekly in two-hour sessions to parents of school-age children.

Two volunteer workshop leaders lead the program. Through GGC, parents learn what the family and individual risk factors are for substance abuse, how to set clear family expectations on drugs and alcohol, what skills their children need to resist peer influences to use drugs or alcohol or engage in antisocial behavior, how to manage family conflict, and how to strengthen family bonds.

The curriculum kit for the workshop leaders consists of two workshop leaders' guides, two videotapes, two family guides that summarize the curriculum and provide follow-up "homework" activities for the family, and a CD for PowerPoint presentations (handouts can be printed from the PowerPoint slides).

Program Quality

Reviewers noted that this program clearly articulated its goals and spelled out its expected behavioral changes. In this way, its clear theoretical foundations were realized, reported reviewers. Materials consistently supported the stated goals; provided a clear rationale for participants; and effectively contributed to increasing the potential for active, meaningful participation by parents. Reviewers identified the cultural and ethnic sensitivity of GGC as a strong attribute. The program was lauded for directly addressing appropriate and inappropriate beliefs commonly held by parents and for incorporating a variety of activities that met the needs of diverse learning styles and helped to retain parents' interest.

Evidence of Efficacy

Reviewers concluded that GGC was well researched and provided complete information about the efficacy of the program. The program addressed risk and protective factors at the family level and had a positive impact on several of these factors. The findings of the four evaluation studies presented indicated that the program had statistically significant results in favor of the treatment group on measures pertaining to the following: 1) general family interactions and child management skills, 2) problem-solving, 3) parent-child affective quality, 4) general child management, 5) interventions focused on parenting behaviors, and 6) improved parent norms pertaining to alcohol use. Long-term follow-up results demonstrated that positive program effects had been maintained for at least one year after intervention.

The evaluation studies used a variety of experimental designs, including a pre-post test design with random assignment of identified families into treatment and nontreatment groups. Self-report and observational methods were used to collect data on risk and protective factors, and studies were conducted to develop measurement models of latent parenting constructs. Reviewers noted that although there were some attrition issues, the differential effects of attrition were not statistically significant and efforts were made to control statistically for pre-test and other differences. The data analyses were appropriate, procedures were well done, and interpretations were justified.

Professional Development Resources and Program Costs

The complete Workshop Kit is $729. Additional Family Guides are $12 (quantity discounts available). A full-color set of transparencies can be purchased separately.

An optional three-day intensive training workshop workshop is available for workshop leaders. The training workshop covers all five sessions of the curriculum while incorporating behavioral skills training and communication-centered approaches. The cost for training up to 12 workshop leaders is $4,750 plus $105 per participant for the training materials. The developer also offers a train the trainer option for large-scale implementation of the program. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)

For Further Information

Channing Bete Company
Guiding Good Choices
One Community Place
South Deerfield, MA 01373-0200

Telephone: 1-877-896-8532
Fax: 1-800-499-6464

E-mail: PrevSci@channing-bete.com

Web site:http://www.channing-bete.com/positiveyouth/pages/FTC/FTC-GGC.html

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 4 to 7 learn to resolve typical, everyday interpersonal problems. This school-based program is designed to teach children how to think, not what to think.

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 a lack of empathy are high-risk predictors of subsequent delinquency and substance abuse, two highly correlated outcomes. The rationale behind ICPS is based on the hypothesis that an individual who becomes preoccupied with the goal of a motivated act rather than with how to obtain it, or does not consider the consequences and possibility of alternative routes to the goal, is an individual who may make impulsive mistakes, become frustrated or aggressive, or avoid the problem entirely by withdrawing.

Program materials include separate manuals for preschool and for kindergarten and primary grades. The program begins 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 thinking about consequences. Lessons are conducted in the classroom three to five times per week by the teachers and last 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 to determine what they should and should not do and why.

Program Quality

According to reviewers, the goals of the program were clearly stated and offered 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 stated that the materials appeared to be free of any cultural or ethnic bias. They also found that the materials and activities encouraged 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. They 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 did not undermine its validity.

Reviewers noted 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.

Professional Development Resources and Program Costs

Training can follow several models. Some teachers have gone through on-site 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 on the distance the teacher must travel. Costs are negotiable.

Each teacher and teacher's aide should have her own ICPS teacher's manual. The manuals cost $39.95 apiece 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 can complete the exercises with his or her child at home. The parent manual, Raising a Thinking Child Workbook, costs $19.95. (Current costs need to be verified with the program.)

For Further Information

Myrna B. Shure
I Can Problem-Solve
MCP Hahnemann University
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology
245 N. 15th St., 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

Note: Raising a Thinking Child is available directly from the publisher, Research Press, at 1-800-519-2707.