Despite the effectiveness of some school-based programs to prevent teen dating violence, the burden it puts on schools and teachers presents a unique challenge. A simple, low-cost alternative is a text message campaign. Data suggest that most adolescents have access to a mobile phone, and texting is the leading form of social interaction. The…

Indigenous communities raise concerns that they are overresearched and tired of research always asking the same questions and reproducing the same answers, thus pressuring researchers to open the discourse on mixed methods research so as to enable new debates and approaches to emerge. A postcolonial indigenous paradigm provides a theoretical…

Program development evaluation should focus on articulating theoretical rationales for program design and activities. To assist the managers of 17 school-based delinquency prevention projects (School Action Effectiveness Study) in developing theories of action, the Program Development Evaluation (PDE) method was utilized. To construct the…

The effectiveness of many specific drug prevention strategies is not known yet, primarily because of poor program evaluation design. However, evidence has shown that interventions based on the social influence model are effective. Regardless of strategies employed, all prevention programs must start early; involve coordinated efforts with the…

Group-randomized trials (GRTs)--studies that evaluate the efficacy or effectiveness of interventions occurring at the group level--are increasingly used to assess the effects of school-based prevention programs on behavioral outcomes of children and adolescents. These designs pose many implementation and design challenges for school…

This document describes a youth suicide prevention program in Arizona developed jointly by the Help On Call Crisis Line and the Family Crisis Service to provide an area-wide school-based prevention program for use in a multicultural community. A review of programs in other cities and states is described and the decision to develop a…

This article describes qualitative and quantitative assessment based on responses of 221 teachers from nine elementary schools in two districts (urban and suburban) to inform plans for reducing and preventing student aggression. Teachers' perceptions of students' aggressive behavior and beliefs were validated against students' self-reports and…

This paper explores adolescent preferences for the setting, timing, delivery format, provider and key elements of tobacco control programmes. The need for programme sensitivity towards urban/rural, gender and ethnic subgroups is also discussed. Schools were purposively selected from the Southern Cape-Karoo Region, South Africa. Twelve prevention…

This book is written for school staff, parents, and others interested in confronting and reversing the use of drugs by developing children. The book is presented in two parts, "The Concept," and "A Story.""The Concept" presents a program blueprint for schools which either are starting a drug education program or augmenting an existing one.…

This report describes a collaborative developmental model for dealing with domestic violence which was designed and implemented by two high school home economics teachers at West Hardin High School in Elizabethtown, Kentucky to address the issue of domestic violence. It discusses the advantages of a collaborative effort between teachers and school…

The rate of sexual abuse of children and adults in our society is appalling, and growing rapidly. This study was designed to determine trends in child sexual abuse prevention and treatment services offered by school districts across America. The questionnaire was designed to allow comparisons of urban, rural, and suburban school district programs…

This paper presents an overview of the evolution of the Yale University Child Study Center's School Development Program (SDP) since its implementation in New Haven, Connecticut in 1968. The needs of inner city school children are discussed, and results of parent and staff surveys are presented. A critique of alternative school improvement…

Little is known about preventing alcohol use by youth in rural America, and almost no rural alcohol prevention program has been evaluated. To address these deficiencies, this paper critically examines the issue of alcohol use by rural youth within a public health framework. The literature is reviewed to identify what is known about the prevalence…