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Timing/Location:
Fall, 1999
Monday/Wednesday, 9:00 - 10:15
Arnold 115
Instructors (Contact):
Substance abuse is a national problem of major concern. Addressing this problem requires a long term commitment and inter-disciplinary creativity due to the changing nature of the problem and variety of motivations leading to the initiation of use. A long-term iterative learning process involving repeated assessment, intervention, and evaluation (elsewhere referred to as "continuous quality improvement") is needed to keep substance abuse in check and lower its prevalence. This course puts such an approach into practice through direct collaboration with Amherst Regional High School (ARHS) and other concerned community groups and organizations. The course will critically review existing national, state, and local school health programs aimed at minimizing drug abuse among high school students and translate the fruits of this research to the ARHS context.
Through this course, graduate students will gain knowledge about the risk factors that lead to substance abuse and experience and perspective in measuring, estimating, and interpreting the extent of substance abuse and associated risk and resiliency factors in the Amherst community relative to the region, state, and nation. The course will identify data gaps and needs that might better inform the broader Amherst community about factors that make substance abuse more likely and about innovative programs that may reduce abuse. The results of original data collection efforts will be used in planning prevention programs and will be integrated into the course for future offerings. Based on a long-term iterative commitment, the course is a work in progress, with progress defined as continuous quality improvement through the assessment and enhancement of programs aimed at reducing problems associated with substance abuse.
Course Objectives:
This course aims to:
Course Requirements: In addition to class participation, students will be evaluated on the basis of four small focused community service learning projects. Reports on these projects will take a variety of forms, such as standard academic papers, presentations in class, presentations to the community, community-friendly reports or synopses, and posting on the courses web page.
At this time and subject to revision, we have identified four tentative community service learning projects:
1. The first project is to work with an appointed Advisory Committee composed of parents, town officials, school administrators, teachers and counselors, and students at Amherst Regional High School to develop and implement a baseline assessment survey questionnaire to determine the prevalence of ATOD use, associated risk and resiliency factors, and perceptions of the effectiveness of current programs (including DARE). Students will research a select domain of risk (or resiliency) factors, such as individual, peers, family, school, or community, to assess the magnitude of its impact in promoting (or retarding) substance abuse AND identify and locate measures of the factors within that domain. It is likely that this project will entail administering the questionnaire at the high school. Depending on the timing and other considerations, it may also involve some data entry and data analysis.
2. Prepare a report on trends in substance abuse based on regional, state, and national data bases. This report will be presented to the Advisory Committee at their first annual retreat now tentatively scheduled for mid-October and it will be posted on our course web page so that it will be accessible to any and all member of the Amherst community.
3. Prepare a (series of) report(s) on the quality and state-of-the-science of intervention programs designed to lower the incidence and prevalence of substance among adolescents, with recommendations for the Amherst Advisory Committee. This report will include a detailed and critical examination of the DARE program.
4. The fourth project involves working with the Amherst Problem Solving Group. The kinds of projects this might involve include: an evaluation of the APSG's efforts to reduce problems associated with drinking along fraternity row in Amherst; a survey of community residents regarding their perceptions of the problem and recommendations for ameliorating it; or, a historical profile of trends in drinking problems in Amherst.
Finally, time permitting, we will try to provide an opportunity for students to conduct a preliminary analysis of an existing data set collected under the auspices of the Springfield SCPPA project.
Communities That Care: Action for Substance Abuse Prevention, by J. David Hawkins, Richard Catalano and Associates, 1992Available at the:Jeffrey Amherst Bookshop
College Textbook Annex (in rear)
55 South Pleasant Street, 253-3381
Additional readings will be distributed in class (See Outline).
Pre-requisites: Good oral and written communication skills, or consent of instructor.
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Class Participation |
20% |
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Questionnaire Development |
20% |
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Trends Report |
20% |
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Program Review Report |
20% |
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APSG Assistance |
20% |
Because discussion and debate are essential for the mastery of the course material, failure to explain absences from three or more classes will result in a reassessment of course grade.
References are given in the Outline
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