Substance Abuse Prevention for Youth Programs
The Substance Abuse Prevention for Youth programs provide diversified services to local elementary, middle, and high school youths about the detrimental use of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. These separate, but related, programs have the overall objective of dually enhancing protective while reducing risk factors related to school performance. Primarily designed to prevent or reduce substance abuse, violence, and other high-risk behaviors, APCC's prevention programs aim also to improve reading, written expression, and math skills; increase school attendance and school bonding, and reduce failure.
These APCC programs are modeled directly after effective evidence-based practices supported by the federal government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), whose mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America's communities. These evidence-based practices have been scientifically tested by SAMHSA and demonstrate that by improving the overall social and behavioral functioning of children and youth, enhancing parental and family competence, and reducing exposure to or participation in substance abuse, they positively affect students' academic performance.
APCC is presently utilizing the following SAMHSA-supported models and practices: (1) life skills training, (2) second step, and (3) strengthening families.
Life Skills Training
Life skills' training is embodied in APCC's Youth Against Drugs and Alcohol (YADA) program. Life skills training addresses multiple risk and protective factors and teaches personal and social skills that build resilience and help youth navigate developmental tasks, including the skills necessary to understand and resist pro-drug influences. This training is designed to provide information relevant to the important life transitions that adolescents and young teens face, using culturally sensitive and developmentally and age-appropriate language and content. Facilitated discussion, structured small group activities, and role-playing scenarios are used to stimulate participation and promote the acquisition of skills.
Through the YADA program, APCC provides a safe environment for high school youths (presently attending Hiram Johnson, West Campus, or C.K. McClatchy high schools) to engage in activities that further develop interpersonal communications skills and strengthen positive relationships with peers and adult role models. The program is dedicated to helping youth discover and develop their potential through workshops and alternative pursuits, such as youth-led after school activities. Overall, the program focuses on increasing knowledge of harmful effects of substance abuse, strengthening refusal skills, engagement in positive activities, motivation, self-esteem, and empowering youths to be confident, productive, and successful citizens.
Second Step
Second Step is a classroom-based program for children 4 to 14 years of age that teaches socio-emotional skills aimed at reducing impulsive and aggressive behavior while increasing social competence. Presently, APCC operates the program at Joseph Bonnheim elementary school and Will C. Wood middle school. The program consists of in-school curricula, parent training, and skill development. Second Step teaches children to identify and understand their own and others' emotions, reduce impulsiveness and choose positive goals, and manage their emotional reactions and decision-making process when emotionally aroused. Group decision-making, modeling, coaching, and practice are demonstrated in the Second Step lesions using interpersonal situations presented in photos or video format.
Strengthening Families Program (SFP)
The Strengthening Families program, directed toward middle school youths and their parents that reside in the south Sacramento area, is a family skills training intervention designed to enhance school success and reduce youth substance use and aggression. The program includes a succession of weekly instructor-taught two-hour sessions in which parents and youths meet separately for instruction during the first hour and together for family activities during the second hour. The sessions provide instructions for parents on understanding the risk factors for substance use, enhancing parent-child bonding, monitoring compliance with parental guidelines and imposing appropriate consequences, managing anger and family conflict, and fostering positive child involvement in family tasks. Children receive instruction on resisting peer influences to use substances.
