Prevention Education: Survey and Recommendations

We ask schools to do a lot of things in addition to preparing our kids to compete in the global economy. Schools have traditionally been thought of as the primary providers of comprehensive drug and alcohol prevention education. Teaching about the dangers of drugs and alcohol is included in the state education requirements of 37 states.

In April 2006, Join Together and Communitas Online, with funding from the Gift of the Magi Foundation, conducted a survey of kindergarten through twelfth-grade educators in the U.S.

The survey’s goals were to learn how drug and alcohol education is actually taught, identify barriers teachers face in teaching prevention, and identify the types of training, support, and materials educators need to improve the effectiveness of their alcohol and drug use prevention efforts.

A national advisory committee of experts in education met several times to discuss the survey results and formulate recommendations on how we can move forward to help delay, reduce, and prevent drug and alcohol use among children and adolescents.

Based on the findings of our survey and other research, we conclude that schools should not be relied on as the primary element in the country's efforts to prevent the early initiation and consequences of alcohol and drug use.

RECOMMENDATIONS

This report is organized around five recommendations that evolved from what educators told us is effective and where they need more help and support.

Recommendation 1:
Schools should not be relied on or act as the principal provider of general prevention education. They can and should play a role as part of a comprehensive community prevention strategy including parents and other social institutions. Schools can and should play a role in helping parents and other community institutions identify and support students who exhibit early behavior patterns that may be precursors to adolescent substance use and other negative life affecting conditions.

Recommendation 2:
School systems should carefully reevaluate money and time spent on outside programs and speakers and unfocused printed materials because they are likely to have no lasting impact on what they know about alcohol and drugs or on their drinking or drug taking behavior.

Recommendation 3:
Schools and communities should pursue opportunities to expand the use of prevention programs and curricula that have been shown by research to be effective in reducing alcohol and drug problems in all extracurricular and after school activities. Developers of these programs need to recognize the severe limitations on the time available in the regular school day to implement them and the likelihood that programs used solely after school will reach a limited number of students.

Recommendation 4:
Teachers should have easy access to materials that use prevention methods that have been shown by research to be effective and are organized for presentation within the time constraints that actually exist in most schools.

Recommendation 5:
When teachers and administrators have drug and alcohol prevention education as an explicit part of their job, their performance should be included in their formal evaluation.

  Download the survey report. (PDF, 1.8 MB)

  Download the detailed analysis of the survey. (PDF, 931K)

  Download the survey instrument. (PDF, 22K)