What do Student Assistance Programs Do?
- Creates an in-school resource to support students who exhibit behaviors that interfere with their education
- Engages administrators, faculty, staff, students, parents and community partners to become actively engaged in the referral process
- Accepts referrals from school staff, students, parents and community partners
- Gathers information about the student's strengths and behaviors of concern
- Interviews the student and his or her parents/guardians and gathers information about the student's strengths and behaviors of concern
- Creates a Student Assistance Team which develops an action plan for the student
- Reviews the plan with the student and the student's parents/guardians
- Implements strategies and monitors the student's progress
- Makes referrals to appropriate in-school and community-based resources
- Periodically reviews the plan
- Provides ongoing support and assistance
- Evaluates the process and outcomes
Top Ten Reasons Why Student Assistance Programs Work
- Students develop coping skills to handle difficulties and achieve more at school.
- Educators demonstrate their commitment to helping young people succeed.
- Students and their families are engaged as resources in the process.
- The success of the program supports educators' confidence that they do make a positive difference in their students' lives.
- Teachers help other teachers.
- Student Assistance Programs are based on proven research.
- The team acquires a bank of successful strategies and useful resources.
- Educators actively work together as a team to generate the best ideas to help students.
- The team lifts the burden of individual teachers by problem solving with them.
- Programs draw on the best ideas of each team member and build on the expertise and resources available in the school and community
The four major categories of assistance strategies that research has proven to be effective in helping young people get back on track and grow up to be safe, successful and drug-free:
- Positive adult connections
- Positive peer connections
- Fun, meaningful and/or altruistic activities
- Working in groups
These strategies are drawn from the research on the 40 Development Assets, resiliency, and the Social Development Strategy. These strategies are not only research-based, they are common sense. When young people have positive adults in their lives as role models, they are more likely to live up to the high expectations and values of those adults. Young people who spend time with positive peers are less likely to get involved in risky behaviors than those who spend most of their time with friends who exhibit behaviors of concern.
Involvement in altruistic activities is one of the most powerful, yet underutilized, strategies available. Like all of us, young people want to feel important, capable and needed and those feelings can be fulfilled when they help others in a meaningful way. The element of fun is crucial even in serious undertakings.
Groups provide an opportunity to combine all the strategies. Whether they are recreational in nature such as scouts, sports, clubs or arts groups or psycho-educational groups, they can be structured to include an adult leader and peers engaged in fun, meaningful and/or altruistic activities.
Back