Unlike many other school-based prevention programs, the Reconnecting At-Risk Youth Prevention Program (RY) is fully integrated into the school curriculum, and participants are graded on their participation just like any other class. During the 1998 National Prevention Network Research Conference, held last month in San Antonio, Texas, RY principal investigator Leona Eggert, R.N., Ph.D., detailed the program's main objectives, which include decreased drug involvement, increased school involvement, and decreased emotional stress. Representatives from three Texas communities that have implemented the program -- Houston, San Antonio and Midland/Odessa -- also were on hand to detail their experiences.
Eggert said that participants in the peer-driven RY program are graded half on how much they have personally improved, and half on how much they have helped others to improve. Program facilitators -- often MSWs or social workers -- stress building a positive peer group, learning stress-management skills, improving interpersonal communication, and learning negotiation as a conflict-resolution medium. Students are encouraged to share their experiences and struggles with issues of violence and drugs, offering each other encouragement, support and occasional criticism, leavened with the skilled direction of the facilitator.
The target population for RY is students with a history of absence/truancy, those with a GPA under 2.3, and/or students who have otherwise had a bad school experience, said Eggert. Typically, 40 percent of RY students screen at risk for depression or suicide. Studies of RY have shown that participant who complete the program have significantly reduced their hard drug use, increased their GPA, exhibit lower levels of suicidology, depression, and anger, and profess an increased sense of self-control, Eggert said.
Eugene Brown, director of San Antonio's Family Violence Prevention Services, Inc., helped bring RY to 14-year-olds in a pair of local schools -- one traditional, one alternative. Brown also reported good success with the program -- 80 percent retention, and an average one-letter-grade improvement on students' report cards. "The challenge was with the alternative school," he told the NPN audience. "The goal there was to return troubled students to regular schools, so those who stayed became institutionalized. But they still participated and responded. The key is to have at least one student in the class who has a positive attitude."
Brown added that a good rapport between the RY facilitator and students, and between the RY facilitator and parents, was also essential. "You have to have the right message and the right messenger," he said.
Officials from the Houston Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse said that educating school officials about the program was also a challenge; administrators needed to be reassured that the program would be fully accredited. In Midland/Odessa, RY proponents said they needed a "champion" within the school district to explain the program, shepherd it through the chain of command, and overcome concerns from a conservative community. A contract detailing exactly what was expected from everyone involved in the program -- RY staff, students, faculty and parents -- also helped overcome resistance and uncertainty.
For more information on RY, contact Dr. Leona Eggert, Psychosocial and Community Health Department, Box 357263, University of Washington School of Nursing, Seattle, WA 98195-7263; (206) 543-9455; e-mail: eggert@u.washington.edu
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