The Role of Schools in Prevention

By Marianna Islam-Addo

While parents and educators seek to pinpoint one factor that leads to youth substance abuse, research shows that a number of factors are generally to blame. Clinicians and other professionals trace youth substance abuse problems to a combination of the positive protective and negative risk factors that exist in the child’s family, community and peers. When a high number of risk factors are not successfully counterbalanced by protective factors, including the personal resiliency of the child, then there is a higher likelihood the child will exhibit problem behavior.

How Can Schools Help

Children walk into their school communities with diverse histories and experiences. The issues that they face rarely exist exclusively in one setting. Risk and protective factors cut across all environments: school, home, extracurricular activities, etc. The school community, however, can serve a critical function in addressing the diverse needs of young people.

The key to preventing youth substance abuse is reducing these related risk factors and increasing or enhancing protective factors, or those that reduce the effects of exposure to risk.

There are a number of red flags that school staff must first recognize, including early and persistent antisocial behavior, academic failure beginning in elementary school, and a lack of commitment to school.

Schools can enhance students’ resilience by providing opportunities for participation in pro-social opportunities, recognition for involvement in those activities, supporting healthy beliefs and setting clear standards for behavior.

Research has shown that risk and protective factors are predictive of other outcomes in addition to substance abuse, such as delinquency, teen pregnancy, quitting school, and violence. In addressing risk and protective factors, teachers and staff reach a range of problem behaviors and students benefit across the board.

What Schools Can Do

• Identify risk factors most prevalent within a specific school setting as early as possible. Several effective tools exist to support rigorous identification, including community participation in surveys like the Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
• Investigate and select strategies to address the risk factors that are developmentally and culturally appropriate. (SAMHSA Key Principles of Prevention, http://prevention.samhsa.gov/)
• Find appropriate research-based (rigorously evaluated, proven effective) prevention programming. These programs and curricula can be delivered to students via health and physical education classes, and are available to students as early as preschool. The Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) website (http://modelprograms.samhsa.gov) and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) website (http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/pathways/safeschools/) both provide a list of research-based school programs.
• Work with parents, students, treatment providers, and law enforcement to develop a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary alcohol and other drug policy within schools. The program should emphasize assessment, protocol and follow-up. For an example, check out “Guide for School-Based Drug Policy and Advisory Councils” (2001), by Isabel Burk.
• Provide on-site access or referrals to mental health programs for youth. The UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools provides a “Resources for Planning Mental Health in Schools” web referral tool at http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/.
• Implement environmental strategies to reduce youth access to substances, such as potential inhalants in classrooms, smoking in the lavatories, and alcohol use before and after games, dances, proms and graduations. For examples, visit the Massachusetts Department of Public Health website (www.state.ma.us/dph/inhalant/) and the Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) publication (http://www.udetc.org/documents/SchoolsCommunities.pdf).
• Become involved with local substance abuse prevention coalition efforts. Many coalitions look to engage schools within their prevention strategies and can also increase school’s capacity to prevent and address problems. (SAMHSA Key Principles of Prevention, http://prevention.samhsa.gov/)
• Help your community assess both youth involvement in problem behavior and the developmental assets of youth via surveys such as the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/yrbs/index.htm).
• Provide pro-social opportunities and recognition for involvement in those activities, such as community service learning that provide meaningful participation for youth.

While our young people are faced with many challenges within their own families, in their communities, among their peers and within schools; their greatest opportunities also exist within these realms. Schools can promote and support collaboration among communities, families and youth to create more opportunities for prevention.

Marianna Islam-Addo is a Community Health Specialist at Metro West Regional Center for Healthy Communities in Cambridge (RCHC). The RCHC promotes partnership among regional and local public health leaders and providers, collaborates with communities to reduce the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs particularly among youth and young adults, and mobilizes youth and young adults for leadership and civic action.

The RCHC Resource Library is open to the public and circulates resources free of charge to any individual who lives or works within the 60 communities in the RCHC service area. The library assists organizations, community groups, schools and individuals in their efforts to prevent the abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs in their communities. The library holds a collection of over 3,200 items, which includes books, videos, DVDs, curricula, kits, games, flip charts, CD-ROMs, and posters. The collection can be searched on-line on the RCHC website http://www.healthiercommunities.org. Please call (617) 441-0700 to schedule an appointment.