|
Stanley Street
Treatment and Resources (SSTAR) was awarded a funding grant to provide
Project
ALERT, a substance abuse prevention and early identification curriculum,
among Fall River youth.
The goals of Project ALERT are explicit: to prevent adolescents from
beginning to use drugs, and to prevent those who have already
experimented from becoming regular users. To prevent or curb risk
factors that have been demonstrated to predict drug use, the curriculum
motivates adolescents not to use drugs and by teaching them skills to
translate that motivation into effective resistance. The lessons that
focus on norms, beliefs about drugs, and intentions help motivate
adolescents not to use.
The SSTAR program
has been providing substance abuse prevention curriculum for seven years,
beginning with a Life Skills program and changing to Project Alert two
years ago.
For more information about the project, contact
Mike Aguiar at 508-324-3598.
|
|
(Top row) SSTAR
Youth Program Director Mike Aguiar opens a discussion on the dangers of
inhalants with a class of sixth-graders at St. Anne's School, then (Middle
row) Prevention Specialist Nic Charest poses questions to the group.
Statistics and long-term research define Project ALERT's success.
Most of the
groups have been held in community settings or public schools. Saint Annes
is the first private school. Unlike
most other programs, Project ALERT has been rigorously tested. Its results
have been verified in thorough, multi-year, multi-community surveys that
controlled for numerous variables. This scientific validation means that
administrators and teachers know what the program can deliver, whom it can
impact and what effort is required to ensure its results last.
|
