Paper Examines Alternative Programs to Prevent Adolescent Drinking and Drug Use

Keeping kids busy during non-school hours—and making their leisure time meaningful and productive—can deter them from indulging in drugs and alcohol. Research backs this up, demonstrating that certain alternative programs such as mentoring or community service, when combined with other prevention measures, can help reduce adolescent substance use and abuse.

Alternatives: A Strategy for Prevention Practitioners is the latest in a series of papers on youth substance abuse prevention developed by HHD’s Northeast Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies (NECAPT). In the field of substance abuse prevention, the term alternatives generally refers to programs specifically designed to stimulate and engage young people during non-school hours through positive, healthy activities—alcohol-, drug-, and violence-free. Although research is relatively new in this area, initial studies show that certain alternatives, when combined with educational and environmental strategies, can be effective.

The paper discusses four categories of alternatives:

• Mentoring programs, which seek to increase youths’ positive attitudes towards others, the future, and school by pairing them with caring adults
  
• Community service and service learning, which give young people an improved sense of well being and better attitudes towards people, the future, and the community
  
• Skill-building programs, which provide informal education and enrichment activities to build life skills
  
• Recreational activities, which provide social and emotional rewards and which can be associated with decreasing substance abuse and delinquency

For each category, the paper examines the research as to its effectiveness, offers a program illustration, and discusses concrete ways of using the strategy in the community.

Alternatives is one of seven effective prevention strategies promoted by the NECAPT. Other strategies include Collaboration, Communications, Policy, Enforcement, Education, Early Intervention.

NECAPT is funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.