NCJ Number
144001
Date Published
Unknown
Length
9 pages
Annotation
Following a listing and description of environmental and personal risk factors for juvenile alcohol and drug abuse, this paper presents a social development strategy for the prevention of juvenile drug abuse.
Abstract
Environmental risk factors are laws and norms favorable toward alcohol and drug use, availability, neighborhood disorganization, and extreme economic deprivation combined with childhood behavioral problems. Personal risk factors are a family history of alcoholism; family management problems; early antisocial behavior; parental drug use and positive attitudes toward use; academic failure; low commitment to school; alienation, rebelliousness, and lack of social bonding; antisocial behavior in early adolescence; friends who use drugs; favorable attitudes toward drug use; and early first use of drugs. These risk factors for drug abuse are organized in the social development strategy that also describes a model to prevent drug abuse. The social development strategy helps children to develop strong bonds to prosocial groups. According to the model, three conditions are necessary for such bonding to occur: opportunities, skills, and rewards. Children must be provided with opportunities to contribute. Children must also be taught the skills necessary to contribute through the opportunities provided. Children must also be rewarded for appropriate behavior and constructively corrected when their behavior is not appropriate. A graphic display of the social development strategy is provided.