jeffwolfsberg

Services for Students • Services for Parents • Services for Faculty • Keynote & Association Workshops

jeff wolfsberg and associates

Contrary to belief, adolescents are eager to talk about underage drinking and other drug use. As their social, cognitive and affective development matures and merges with a culture that all too often promotes health-damaging behaviors; the issue of substance use becomes more than a curiosity but a subject that is impacting their relationships. Whether to use substance or not is a contemporary developmental task for many adolescents. Prevention education can be effective with students when it is:

Relevant to their lives
Appropriately timed to their developmental needs
Is interactive and discussion-based
Socioculturally relevant
Incorporates prevention, health promotion, and risk reduction messages
Combined with other prevention strategies to enhance the individual intervention with students
Include peer led education components
And fun!

Research points to parental involvement as being the single most important factor in an adolescent’s relationship to alcohol and other drugs. Drug-free kids cite parental influence as the #1 reason for their choice not to drink and use other drugs. School-based prevention efforts are strongly reinforced by parental involvement on many levels:

Committee and advisory board participation
Establishing communication networks and organizing alcohol and other drug-free activities
Support and attend parent education and training initiatives at school
Utilize the Community of Concern's “A Parent’s Guide to the Prevention of Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Use”

In the review of literature on the efficacy of prevention approaches, the training of school faculty enhanced the impact of school-based prevention programs. One cannot underestimate the importance of a consistent and coordinated adult strategy to guide students’ positive behaviors and prevent or address behavior problems. To this aim, faculty education and training is essential in helping a school community prevent underage drinking and other drug use. An important feature of any prevention strategy is “many messengers sending the same message”.

During any visit to a school community, we encourage schools to schedule a faculty meeting to introduce our seminar and provide faculty the opportunity to ask questions and receive information from our instructors.

Coming Soon.