Prime for Life Under 21

PRIME For Lifeis an alcohol and drug program for people of all ages. It is designed to gently but powerfully challenge common beliefs and attitudes that directly contribute to high-risk alcohol and drug use. The program goals are to reduce the risk for health problems and impairment problems by:

A primary goal of PRIME For Life is prevention of any type of alcohol or drug problem. This includes prevention of health problems such as alcoholism, or impairment problems such as car crashes or fights. Emphasis is on knowing and understanding risks one cannot change and reducing risks one can change.

Many people who attend a PRIME For Life programs already show signs of alcohol- or drug-related health or impairment problems. PRIME For Life is designed to effectively interrupt the progression of use with these audiences. PRIME For Life’s intervention component focuses on self-assessment to help people understand and accept the need for change. Intensive prevention services, counseling, or treatment may be necessary to support these changes. For those who already need treatment, the program serves as pre-treatment and support for abstinence.

Using a persuasion-based approach, instructors use a variety of delivery methods, including interactive presentation and small group discussion. Participants use work books throughout the course to complete a number of individual and group activities. Material is presented using a DVD platform with animation, full-motion video clips, and audio clips to enhance the learning experience.

Several themes run throughout PRIME For Life. The first is an emphasis on the reality that while all of us can influence another person's drinking choices to some degree, none of us can directly control those choices. Therefore, the program is designed to maximize the influence of helping professionals, instructors or family members.

TEA (Tobacco Education Awareness)

Project ALERT

Project ALERT is a school-based prevention program for middle or junior high school students that focuses on alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use. It seeks to prevent adolescent nonusers from experimenting with these drugs, and to prevent youths who are already experimenting from becoming more regular users or abusers. Based on the social influence model of prevention, the program is designed to help motivate young people to avoid using drugs and to teach them the skills they need to understand and resist prodrug social influences. The curriculum is comprised of 11 lessons in the first year and 3 lessons in the second year. Lessons involve small-group activities, question-and-answer sessions, role-playing, and the rehearsal of new skills to stimulate students' interest and participation. The content focuses on helping students understand the consequences of drug use, recognize the benefits of nonuse, build norms against use, and identify and resist prodrug pressures.

 

Project SUCCESS

Project SUCCESS (Schools Using Coordinated Community Efforts to Strengthen Students) is designed to prevent and reduce substance use among students 12 to 18 years of age. The program was originally developed for students attending alternative high schools who are at high risk for substance use and abuse due to poor academic performance, truancy, discipline problems, negative attitudes toward school, and parental substance abuse. In recent years, Project SUCCESS has been used in regular middle and high schools for a broader range of high-risk students. The intervention includes four components:

1. The Prevention Education Series (PES), an eight-session alcohol, tobacco, and other drug program conducted by Project SUCCESS counselors (local staff trained by the developers) who help students identify and resist pressures to use substances, correct misperceptions about the prevalence and acceptability of substance use, and understand the consequences of substance use.

2. Schoolwide activities and promotional materials to increase the perception of the harm of substance use, positively change social norms about substance use, and increase enforcement of and compliance with school policies and community laws.

3. A parent program that includes informational meetings, parent education, and the formation of a parent advisory committee.

4. Individual and group counseling, in which the Project SUCCESS counselors conduct time-limited counseling for youth following their participation in the PES and an individual assessment. Students and parents who require more intensive counseling, treatment, or other services are referred to appropriate agencies or practitioners in the community

 

NOT: Not-On-Tobacco (Smoking Cessation Program)

Not On Tobacco (N-O-T) is a school-based smoking cessation program designed for youth ages 14 to 19 who are daily smokers. N-O-T is based on social cognitive theory and incorporates training in self-management and stimulus control; social skills and social influence; stress management; relapse prevention; and techniques to manage nicotine withdrawal, weight, and family and peer pressure. The program consists of 50-minute group sessions conducted weekly for 10 consecutive weeks, plus four optional booster sessions. The sessions are delivered in gender-specific groups of 10-12 teens by same-gender facilitators. N-O-T can be implemented by schools or other community organizations using teachers, school nurses, counselors, and other staff and volunteers who are trained to facilitate group sessions.

 

Reconnecting Youth (RY)

Reconnecting Youth: A Peer Group Approach to Building Life Skills (RY) is an 80-lesson curriculum that has been proven effective in helping high-risk youth in grades 9-12 raise their GPAs and manage their anger, while decreasing drug use, depression, and suicide risk. The research-based RY curriculum is divided into four major units: Self-Esteem Enhancement, Decision-Making, Personal Control, and Interpersonal Communication. It is unique in that it is a comprehensive, sustained, semester-long intervention that integrates small-group work and life-skills training models to effectively enhance the personal and social protective factors of high-risk youth. A variety of school personnel throughout the nation have been trained by program staff to successfully implement the curriculum.

 

LifeSkills Training

LifeSkills Training (LST) is a research-validated substance abuse prevention program proven to reduce the risks of alcohol, tobacco, drug abuse, and violence by targeting the major social and psychological factors that promote the initiation of substance use and other risky behaviors. This comprehensive and exciting program provides adolescents and young teens with the confidence and skills necessary to successfully handle challenging situations.

Developed by Dr. Gilbert J. Botvin, a leading prevention expert, LifeSkills Training is backed by over 20 scientific studies and is recognized as a Model or Exemplary program by an array of government agencies including the U.S. Department of Education and the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.

Rather than merely teaching information about the dangers of drug abuse, LifeSkills Training promotes healthy alternatives to risky behavior through activities designed to:
- Teach students the necessary skills to resist social (peer) pressures to smoke, drink, and use drugs
- Help students to develop greater self-esteem and self-confidence
- Enable students to effectively cope with anxiety
- Increase their knowledge of the immediate consequences of substance abuse
- Enhance cognitive and behavioral competency to reduce and prevent a variety of health risk behaviors

 

SkillStreaming

SkillStreaming addresses the social skill needs of students who display aggression, immaturity, withdrawal, or other problem behaviors. This newly revised book offers the most up-to-date information for implementing the SkillStreaming approach, which utilizes modeling, role playing, performance feedback, and transfer (homework). Students develop competence in dealing with interpersonal conflicts and learn to use self-control. The curriculum contains 60 skill lessons and includes five skill groups: Classroom Survival Skills, Friendship-Making Skills, Dealing with Feelings, Alternatives to Aggression, and Dealing with Stress

 

LIP (Leaders In Prevention)

A.D.A.P.T. has been facilitating a LIP group since it’s inception in the state through Teen Institute in 1999. Each year ADAPT provides an opportunity for eight Lin-Wood students to attend a four-day residential experience. Participants gain the skills, knowledge and motivation necessary to formulate action plans to implement prevention efforts and initiatives within their school environments.

 

INSPIRE!

Experiential Education

The Principles of Experiential Education are as follows:
- Experiential learning occurs when carefully chosen experiences are supported by reflection, critical analysis and synthesis.
- Experiences are structured to require the learner(2) to take initiative, make decisions and be accountable for results.
- Throughout the experiential learning process, the learner is actively engaged in posing questions, investigating, experimenting, being curious, solving problems, assuming responsibility, being creative, and constructing meaning.
- Learners are engaged intellectually, emotionally, socially, soulfully and/or physically. This involvement produces a perception that the learning task is authentic.
- The results of the learning are personal and form the basis for future experience and learning.
- Relationships are developed and nurtured: learner to self, learner to others and learner to the world at large.
- The educator(3) and learner may experience success, failure, adventure, risk-taking and uncertainty, because the outcomes of experience cannot totally be predicted.
- Opportunities are nurtured for learners and educators to explore and examine their own values.
- The educator's primary roles include setting suitable experiences, posing problems, setting boundaries, supporting learners, insuring physical and emotional safety, and facilitating the learning process.
- The educator recognizes and encourages spontaneous opportunities for learning.
- Educators strive to be aware of their biases, judgments and pre-conceptions, and how these influence the learner.
- The design of the learning experience includes the possibility to learn from natural consequences, mistakes and successes.

 

MET/CBT 5 (Motivational Enhancement Therapy/Cognitive Behavioral Therapy 5)

MET/CBT 5 is an evidence-based, 5 session youth substance abuse treatment model. Two motivational sessions focus on identifying factors that motivate youth to change their substance using behavior. Three cognitive behavioral sessions follow to teach youth practical coping and refusal skills.

 

Community Service

A.D.A.P.T. offers monthly community service opportunities for students to participate in to help instill a sense of community for the youth who participate. Community service opportunities include:
- World Play Day
- Kick Butts Day
- Polar Express
- and more

 

Summer Adventure Program

A.D.A.P.T. and The Center for Adolescent Health will once again be providing a summer adventure program for at-risk high school students. This program will take place one day a week during the summer and transportation will be provided. In addition there will also be a backpacking or surf camp trip offered one weekend each month.