Preventing Youth Substance Abuse

CSAP identified four critical predictors from childhood for substance use that could be valuable targets for prevention of adolescent substance use management of and involvement with the child, and the child's social competence, and school achievement. This book shows how seven selected prevention programs address these.

"Drug Abuse Prevention: A School and Community Partnership, Third Edition", takes an evidence-based approach to teach students the important concepts and skills needed to design effective drug prevention programs. Covering more than just the facts, this text provides a background of drug use and abuse and presents the principles and skills of prevention, with particular focus on adolescents and school settings. It reinforces the importance of schools forming community partnerships with key institutions and the application of policy tools to enhance the impact of education alone. -- From publisher's description.

All across the United States, individuals, families, communities, and health care systems are struggling to cope with substance use, misuse, and substance use disorders. Substance misuse and substance use disorders have devastating effects, disrupt the future plans of too many young people, and all too often, end lives prematurely and tragically. Substance misuse is a major public health challenge and a priority for our nation to address. The effects of substance use are cumulative and costly for our society, placing burdens on workplaces, the health care system, families, states, and communities. The Report discusses opportunities to bring substance use disorder treatment and mainstream health care systems into alignment so that they can address a person's overall health, rather than a substance misuse or a physical health condition alone or in isolation. It also provides suggestions and recommendations for action that everyone-individuals, families, community leaders, law enforcement, health care professionals, policymakers, and researchers-can take to prevent substance misuse and reduce its consequences.

First published in 1997. There is an almost universal consensus that we as adult individuals, as communities, and as a nation, should attempt to prevent our youngsters from using alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. For three and a half years, from 1990 to 1994, a team of researchers and clinical practitioners from Fordham University's Graduate School of Social Service, with funding from the New York State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services, worked to review the literature published in the past two decades pertaining to the content and outcomes of adolescent substance abuse prevention programs which had been fielded during that twenty-year period. The results were presented to over a thousand substance abuse prevention specialists in a series of seminars throughout New York State. This book is a result of a need of effective strategies and training for those present were working in the field, in schools and community agencies, attempting to accomplish adolescent substance abuse prevention.

Innovations in Adolescent Substance Abuse Interventions focuses on developmentally appropriate approaches to the assessment, prevention, or treatment of substance use problems among adolescents. Organized into 16 chapters, this book begins with an assessment of adolescent substance use; theory, methods, and effectiveness of a drug abuse prevention approach; and problem behavior prevention programming for schools and community groups. Some chapters follow on the community-, family- and school-based interventions for adolescents with substance use problems. Other chapters explain psychopharmacological therapy; the assertive aftercare protocol for adolescent substance abusers; and twelve-step-based interventions for adolescents.

Youth substance use and misuse are still highly common, despite substantial efforts made to reduce the problem. Early start with substance use is often associated with more severe short- and long-term negative consequences for youth psycho-social adjustment. Bringing together international experts in the areas of prevention, health, and developmental science, this volume presents the most up-to-date knowledge about etiology (e.g., risk and protective factors) of substance use behaviors and the most effective interventions that can be implemented in the school setting. It also presents current hot topics in the field, such as: The importance of implementation fidelity for the success of the program The need to find effective ways to disseminate evidence based interventions and to understand whether those interventions are, in fact, cost effective. Taken together, these articles shed a light on what has been done and what still needs to be done to combat substance use among youth and suggest new theoretical perspectives and new practical approaches to address the problem. This is the 141st volume of New Directions for Youth Development, the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series dedicated to bringing together everyone concerned with helping young people, including scholars, practitioners, and people from different disciplines and professions.