Crary E 1997 Help! The Kids Are at It Again Seattle Wa Parenting Press Inc

June R. Wyman

Ii NIDA-funded studies are finding that working with the family is more effective in reducing risks of drug abuse than working with parents or children alone. Both projects target families at risk. The Strengthening Families Program works with parents and children in families where the parents abuse drugs, while Focus on Families works with parents who are in methadone treatment. Children from such families, inquiry shows, are at chance for becoming drug abusers themselves.

Strengthening Families

The Strengthening Families Plan is aimed at 6- to 10-year-old children of drug abusers and their parents.

"We piece of work on improving parent-child relationships - their time together, their communication patterns," says Dr. Karol Kumpfer of the University of Utah in Salt Lake Urban center, the projection's master investigator. "We attempt to change the family dynamics, to create a more autonomous family where they really accept family meetings, talk together, and plan activities together. So the child feels that he or she belongs to something, that 'nosotros are a family, we believe sure things, we correspond certain things, and we work together as a unit.'"

Defining Prevention Programs Past Their Audiences

Whatsoever program works best when information technology is tailored to its audition - and the same is true of drug corruption prevention efforts. While some programs effort to reach whole communities, others target specific at-chance subgroups. To draw the unlike approaches, researchers accept adopted new definitions:

• Universal programs reach the general population, but in a divers setting. Example: all students in a school.
• Selective programs target groups within the full general population that research has defined as at risk for drug abuse. Examples: children of drug abusers, poor school achievers.
• Indicated programs are designed for people who already have tried drugs or show other adventure-related problem behaviors. Example: high school students at run a risk for dropping out because of multiple issues such equally depression, poor grades, and substance corruption.

A projection may utilize ane, two, or all of these strategies. The family unit-focused programs on this page are selective prevention projects; the schoolhouse-based programs described on page 8 are indicated programs.

Dr. Kumpfer devised her program after reviewing more than 500 family drug corruption prevention programs. From this survey, she designed a report to compare three promising approaches: a 14-session parent training program; the same program combined with a children's skills training plan; and a iii-way merger of the parent and kid programs with a family skills training program.

Her written report, done in Table salt Lake City, involved families with parents who were in methadone handling programs or who were substance-abusing outpatients at community mental wellness centers. The inquiry showed that the three-part intervention was the almost powerful in reducing trouble behaviors. Compared with families that did not receive whatever intervention, families that went through the three-function program showed significant improvements in adults' parenting skills, children's social skills, and family relationships. Children achieved significant reductions in aggressiveness and other problem behaviors. Older children significantly reduced their utilize of tobacco, drugs, and alcohol, and parents reduced their depression and drug use substantially.

The three-part curriculum became the Strengthening Families Program and has since been adapted and tested with unlike ethnic populations beyond the country. Although these modified versions of the program differ in cultural content, all use the same basic framework: parent training, children'due south preparation, and family skills training. In each of 14 weekly sessions, groups of parents and children are taught separately for the showtime hour. In the 2d hr, they come up together to do their new skills. Afterward, the whole group shares dinner and a movie or other amusement.

In their sessions, children larn how to be direct, to talk about bug, and to ask for what they need. For example, "A lot of the kids say that they would like to tell their parents to stop using drugs, and they just don't know how - so we teach them those skills," says Donna Lee Picaso, a caseworker with the Denver Area Youth Services Agency who led children's classes in the Denver study. Children likewise learn how to resist peer pressure level, handle anger, bargain with criticism, and cope with problems without resorting to drugs.

Parents are trained in techniques such equally establishing goals, giving incentives and reinforcements, and setting limits. "They're right up forepart with saying they have very limited skills, and they're anxious to learn new ones," says Donna Martinez, a social worker in the Denver study.

Sessions are held in facilities that are like shooting fish in a barrel for participants to reach such as family unit support centers in urban housing projects, customs centers, local churches, and schools. Group size has ranged from 5 to xiv families. Session leaders are recruited from local social service agencies and have counseling or social work experience.

Focus on Families

Average Drug Use During By thirty Days By Parents, 12 Months Afterwards Finishing Focus on Families Program. Parents in the Focus on Families parenting program, all recruited from methadone treatment clinics, reported using heroin and cocaine less often than did clinic parents who did not participate in Focus on Families.

A different approach is taken in Focus on Families, a parenting programme for methadone treatment patients developed by Dr. Richard Catalano and his colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle. The goal of this plan is to reduce parents' use of illegal drugs by teaching them how to cope with problems without resorting to drug corruption and how to manage their families amend.

The program was tested in Seattle with families recruited from two Seattle-surface area methadone clinics. Although all parents were in methadone treatment to reduce their drug employ, 54 percent reported that they had used heroin, marijuana, cocaine, and other illegal drugs in the month before inbound the family programme. Families were randomly assigned to the experimental grouping, which went through the Focus on Families program, or the control group, which did not.

Later on families attended an initial 5-hr retreat, parents completed 4 months of twice weekly 90-minute preparation sessions. Children attended 12 of the sessions to practice communication skills with their parents.

Case managers visited each family at home every week for 9 months to help use new skills and solve family unit issues. These firm calls were critical, says Kevin Haggerty of Dr. Catalano's research team. "Families need easily-on coaching to reinforce the skills they learn and to deal with the never-ending crises in the lives of addicted parents."

To appraise the programme's impact, parents were interviewed earlier the program, right after their 4-month training, and again at 6, 12, and 24 months later the end of training. Children age 6 and older in the handling families, as well equally command group families, were interviewed at the same intervals.

"A lot of the kids say that they would like to tell their parents to stop using drugs,and they just don't know how - then we teach them those skills."

At the 12-month interview, programme parents reported dramatic reductions in their heroin and cocaine use and significantly ameliorate parenting skills compared with the control group, Dr. Catalano reports. At the 24-month followup, parenting and problem-solving skills remained significantly better, but "we lost the significant handling effects on drug use," says Haggerty. "Family unit interventions need to be ongoing with parents who are drug addicts," he concludes.

The program had a mixed touch on the children, who ranged in age from 3 to 14 years. At the 24-calendar month followup, plan children reported a trend toward less runaway behavior and marijuana apply, and those 9 years and older reported lower rates of alcohol initiation. The programme appears to accept had a greater touch on on younger children than older ones. This finding suggests that children of addicts may benefit more if they are exposed to improved parenting earlier and longer, the researchers conclude.

Next Steps

Despite promising results from these models, at that place is much to learn well-nigh preventing drug corruption in families, says Dr. Rebecca Ashery of NIDA's Prevention Research Branch. More than research is needed on issues such as:

• how to adapt successful programs to unlike cultural and indigenous groups equally was done with the Strengthening Families Program.
• how males and females respond differently to drug corruption prevention training.
• how to concenter and retain families in prevention studies.
• intervening with the extended family unit.
• intervening with the virtually dysfunctional families - for instance, parents who take drugs, are physically or emotionally abusive, and endure from major mental illnesses.

Another adjacent stride is to put more emphasis on very young children. "Through enquiry we're finding out that it's not too soon to intervene early on in school or even earlier schoolhouse," says Dr. Ashery.

"In the long run, what it volition take is a comprehensive arroyo. You can't practise the family unit in isolation, the school in isolation, the customs in isolation," she says. "You have to do it all in concert: school, family, and community together."

Sources

• Catalano, R.F.; Haggerty, K.P.; Fleming, C.B.; and Brewer, D.D. Focus on Families: Scientific findings from family prevention intervention inquiry. NIDA Research Monograph, in press.
• Kumpfer, Thousand.L.; Molgaard, 5.; and Spoth, R. The "Strengthening Families Program" for the prevention of delinquency and drug use. In: Peters, R., and McMahon, R., eds. Preventing Babyhood Disorders, Substance Abuse, and Malversation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 241-267, 1996.

For more information:

• About the Strengthening Families Program, contact Dr. Karol Kumpfer, Department of Health Education, Academy of Utah, Common salt Lake City, UT 84112, (801) 581-7718.
• About Focus on Families, contact Kevin Haggerty, Social Evolution Research Grouping, University of Washington, 9725 3rd Ave. Due north.E., Ste. 401, Seattle, WA 98115, (206) 543-3188.

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Source: https://archives.drugabuse.gov/news-events/nida-notes/1997/06/multifaceted-prevention-programs-reach-risk-children-through-their-families

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