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School ProjectsEnvironment-Person Influences on the Development of Early Alcohol Use and MisuseThis three-year collaborative international project between the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington and the Center for Adolescent Health at the University of Melbourne investigates the impact of individual differences and context on alcohol use during late childhood and early adolescence. The International Youth Development Study (IYDS, R. F. Catalano, PI) collected data in 2002 from 5,769 students in three cohorts (approximately 1,000 students in Grades 5, 7, and 9) using matched procedures and recruitment of statewide representative samples in Washington State in the U.S. and Victoria, Australia. Each cohort was followed over 2 and 3 years (98% completion), resulting in a sample with an age span from 10 to 16 years. Student reports were supplemented with a parent telephone interview and three school administrator reports of the policy context of participants’ schools. The current study uses existing IYDS data to examine similarities and differences in predictors of alcohol use, misuse, and other problems. A unique aspect of this study is the examination of school policy effects on student drug use. Analyses will yield new information on the local and cross-national influences associated with early adolescent alcohol use and symptoms of alcohol use disorders, enabling the cultural generalization of risk influences and alcohol consequences. Start Date: 2008 A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Steps to Respect School Bullying Prevention ProgramThe Social Development Research Group is partnering with Committee for Children to conduct a large-scale school-randomized evaluation of Steps To Respect: A School Bullying Prevention Program. The evaluation calls for 32 schools in four California counties to be randomly assigned to either the intervention condition, receiving the Steps to Respect program, or the control condition. Data from students, teachers, and other school personnel will be collected at pretest (at the beginning of the school year) and posttest (at the end of the school year) to determine whether schools receiving the intervention experience lower levels of bullying behavior and victimization than do control schools. Start Date: 2008 Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP)SSDP began in 1981 to test strategies for reducing childhood risk factors for school failure, drug abuse, and delinquency. First graders in five Seattle schools were assigned to intervention or control classrooms. Each year through the elementary grades parents and teachers in intervention classrooms learned how to actively engage children in learning, strengthen bonding to family and school, and encourage children's positive behaviors. In 1985, when the original first graders entered the fifth grade, the panel was expanded to 808 students from 18 Seattle elementary schools. These participants and their parents have been interviewed regularly since 1985. The study has produced important findings on the development of alcohol abuse and dependence, on risk factors for school dropout, violence and gang membership, and on long term effects of preventive intervention in the elementary grades. The Seattle Social Development Project has generated many studies drawing on the same panel of participants. Currently funded projects are: Educational Attainment and Patterns of Tobacco Use and Addiction: What Explains the Relationships? Education is a powerful socio-demographic predictor of smoking prevalence, and in line with these public health goals and recommendations, the current study proposes to investigate educational disparities in patterns of tobacco use and addiction and factors that might account for these disparities. We are conducting an examination of the link between educational attainment and subsequent tobacco use and addiction through age 33 in the Seattle Social Development Project. In addition, the project examines factors such as job characteristics, stress, bonding, knowledge of the health consequences of smoking, and perceived social unacceptability and stigmatization of smoking that might account for educational disparities in patterns of tobacco use and addiction. Start Date: 2008 Linking Parent Drug Use and Child Development Across Three Generations. Many of the SSDP sample members are now raising children of their own, and SSDP has been extended to include a study of those panel members who are parents, in addition to their children and partners. This study examines the consequences of parent drug use on child development and factors that promote or discourage the continuation of drug use across generations. Start Date: 2008 Psychopathology and Health Risk Behavior Into Adulthood. This study examines the course, consequences, predictors, and prevention of depression, social phobia, and generalized anxiety, as well as their co-occurrence with risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and substance abuse and dependence in young adulthood in the SSDP sample through age 33. Analyses focus on the longitudinal patterns of these outcomes in the 20s and 30s, and the consequences of these patterns for healthy adult functioning, including positive behavior, physical health, and utilization of health services. Analyses include an examination of the effects of patterns of depression and anxiety on HIV risk. The study also examines the role of social developmental processes and proximal stressful life events in explaining patterns of depression and anxiety and their co-occurrence with HIV risk and substance abuse/dependence in young adulthood, as well as the long-term effects of the SSDP intervention in the elementary grades on these patterns. Start Date: 2006 Substance Use and Transitions to Adult Roles. Currently, SSDP is collecting and analyzing data from the sample in young adulthood to examine factors that affect the transition to adult roles. Analysis of the causes and consequences of early onset offending, the predictors of adolescent sexual behavior and pregnancy, the predictors of hard drug use and smoking, as well as the dimensions of positive behavior in early adulthood are also underway. Start Date: 1996 Previous funding for SSDP projects: National Institute on Drug Abuse; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; National Institute of Mental Health; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Burlington Northern Foundation; Safeco Insurance Company. Raising Healthy Children (RHC)Approximately 1000 students, their parents, and their teachers in Edmonds School District #15 are participating in Raising Healthy Children (RHC), an eight-year project funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Children in seventh and eighth grade, originally from ten Edmonds District elementary schools, are taking part in the project which is being carried out by the Social Development Research Group. The research group has found that certain factors in young children's lives increase their risk for health and behavior problems in adolescence, including drug abuse and dropping out of school. Certain other factors seem to protect children against these problems. School success is one of the "protective factors" the researchers have identified, and one theme of Raising Healthy Children is that each student, given the right opportunity, can and will succeed in school. The project combines parenting workshops and staff development for teachers. Parents will have the opportunity to attend workshops such as "Raising Healthy Children," "How to Help Your Child Succeed in School, "Preparing for the Drug Free Years" and "Moving Into Middle School." They learn how to encourage positive behavior and family bonding as well as academic success. The parenting workshops draw on research which has revealed that early childhood experiences in the family can enhance children's success in school and reduce their risk for later problems. The project also offers home-based services to a limited number of families with special needs who find it impossible to take advantage of the classes. During the high school years, parents and teens receive individual home visits that act as booster sessions to earlier parenting sessions. The indvidual visits are offered as students are moving into high school, as they approach driving age and as they prepare to leave high school. Teachers in elementary and middle school receive training in how to keep children interested in learning. Using "interactive teaching," they provide students with opportunities for involvement, actively monitor each child's understanding of the material, and recognize mastery of incremental learning steps. "Proactive classroom management" enables teachers to create an atmosphere of learning that avoids notice of problem behavior and praises students who try to comply, at the same time minimizing the effect of minor disturbances. Students work in small teams, helping each other master the curriculum content. Active involvement in learning has been shown to enhance student achievement, concern for classmates, and commitment to school. The result of these teaching methods is a classroom where children feel good about themselves and their ability to learn. Strategies employed in Raising Healthy Children have been shown by earlier SDRG research to reduce children's risk for later health and behavior problems. The researchers will carefully evaluate the RHC project to see whether the techniques are successful in a new setting, furthering our understanding of how to promote children's growth into healthy members of the community. Start Date: 1993 Raising Healthy Children: Bedford County, PennsylvaniaRaising Healthy Children: Bedford County, PA is based upon the successful strategies of the Seattle Social Development Project and the Raising Healthy Children project. Bedford County will receive technical assistance, training, and monitoring from SDRG, and local staff will be hired to implement the program. The program’s overall goal is to make a significant impact on known risk and protective factors for academic success, substance abuse, violence, and aggressive behavior before the critical middle school years when children most typically begin to engage in a range of risk behaviors. Bedford County chose to employ this strategy because multiple program replications have demonstrated that, by increasing protection for children and putting them on a positive trajectory, RHC helps reduce the overall number of youth at-risk entering the middle school/junior high school years and increases academic and social success among all students. Like the original RHC project, this current program has teacher, child, and parent components. All elementary grade teachers receive in-service training in a package of instructional methods with three major components: proactive classroom management, interactive teaching, and cooperative learning. Beginning in first grade, teachers implement instruction in the use of a cognitive, emotional, and social skills training and interpersonal cognitive problem solving, which teaches children to think through and use alternative solutions to problems with peers. The curriculum develops children’s skills for involvement in cooperative learning groups and other social activities without resorting to aggressive or other problem behaviors. In addition, in middle-level grades, students receive training in skills to recognize and resist social influences to engage in problem behaviors and to generate and suggest positive alternatives to stay out of trouble while still keeping friends. The parents and caretakers receive classes appropriate to the developmental level of their children. Parents of children in grades 1-3 will be offered training in child behavior management skills and skills to strengthen their ability to support their children’s academic development. Parents of children in grades 4-6 will be offered training to enhance family bonding and strengthen parents’ skills to reduce their children’s risks for drug use. Start Date: 2006 |