This Phase I application requests 6 months of funding to develop and test the addition of a parental component to a state-of-the-art school-based drug abuse prevention program called Life Skills Training (LST). LST is an extensively evaluated prevention program for middle/junior high school students that has been found to produce long-term reductions in drug use prevalence (relative to controls) over a six year' period of 44% and in polydrug use up to 66%. The prevention materials for parents will consist of both a commercial quality 20-minute video and a written prevention guide that will be used in conjunction with the LST school-based program in order to maximize its effectiveness with middle/junior high school youth and address family-level risk and protective factors that can not be addressed in the classroom.. Prototype materials will be developed, reviewed, and subjected to focus group testing during Phase I; revised, produced, and tested during Phase II in a randomized controlled field trial involving 30 schools and 3,000 7th grade students. This project offers the potential to fill a major gap in the drug abuse prevention field by targeting family level etiologic factors within the framework of a proven drug abuse prevention approach.
Drug abuse is a major concern to parents and educators. Given that there are few proven methods for prevention drug abuse and national data show that the problem is getting worse, attractive, effective, and easy-to-use provider training materials will have tremendous commercial potential.
