Strategies

Prevention Strategies for Teachers

BOTVIN LIFE SKILLS TRAINING PROGRAM

The Botvin Life Skills Training is a comprehensive program based on the latest research regarding the causes of substance use. Second, it is comprehensive. It addresses all of the most important factors that lead adolescents to use one or more drugs by teaching a combination of health information, general life skills, and drug resistance skills. The curriculum utilizes proven skills training methods and its effectiveness is documented by over 20 years of rigorous evaluation research. Not only does it impact the risk and protective factors associated with substance use, but also it has been proven to reduce the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs for up to six years.

SECOND STEP CURRICULUM

Second Step is a series of curriculum kits designed to reduce impulsive and aggressive behavior in children and increase their level of social competence. It does this by teaching skills in empathy, impulse control, and anger management. The Second Step series includes curricula for preschool/kindergarten and grades 1-3, 4-5, and middle school/junior high.

Second Step can be integrated into health and safety programs. In personal safety education, children are taught how to avoid becoming victims. Second Step teaches children how to avoid becoming victimizers. It targets skill deficits that put children at risk not only for violence, but also for substance use, suicide, and dropping out of school. Second Step can be adopted as a basic skills curriculum for prevention education.

NATURAL HELPERS PROGRAM

The Natural Helpers program is based on a simple premise: Within every school, an informal "helping network" exist. Students with problems naturally seek out other students-and occasionally teachers or other school staff-whom they trust. They want advice, assistance, or just sympathetic ear. The Natural Helpers program uses this existing helping network; and provides training to students and adults who are already identified as "natural" helpers. It gives them the skills they need to provide help more effectively to young people who solicit it.

The Natural Helpers program is designed to meet four basic goals:

	To help young people develop the capability to prevent some of the problems of adolescence including depression, suicide, and drug use.
	To help young people develop the capability to intervene effectively with troubled friends.
	To help young people develop the capability to choose positive ways of taking care of themselves.
	To help young people develop the capability to improve their school and community.

RESPECT AND PROTECT

The Respect and Protect approach is not a militant, punitive, "get rid of the enemy" type of strategy. Instead, it requires all school staff to take responsibility for creating and maintaining a total campus environment that is safe, secure, supportive, nurturing, and intolerant of violence in any form.

The four goals of Johnson Institutes' Respect and Protect approach to violence prevention and intervention are:

	To ensure the safety and well being of both students and educators.
	To reduce the severity and frequency of, and eventually eliminate, all incidents of violence from the school setting.
	To eliminate the two pervasive attitudes that directly spawns and supports violence in schools: entitlement and tolerance.
	To create a safe, supportive, nurturing, nonpunitive atmosphere highly conducive to learning.

Bullying Prevention Program

The Bullying Prevention Program (BPP) is a multi-level, multi-component program designed to reduce and prevent school's bully/victim problems among primary and secondary programs. School staffs are largely responsible for introducing and implementing the program, and their efforts are directed towards peer relations and making the school a safe and pleasant place to be. The Bullying Prevention Program attempts to restructure the existing school environment to reduce opportunities and rewards for bullying behavior.

The BPP has been shown to result in substantial reductions, by 50% or more, in the frequency with which students report being bullied and bullying others and significant reductions in students' reports of general antisocial behavior such as vandalism, fighting, theft, and truancy.

Peer Mediation

This is a two-day training program for students to learn the formalized process of mediation. Students learn how to help other students verbalize their problems and help them come up with solutions (win/win). Peer mediation is part of an overall continuum of student helping student programs, including Natural Helpers, Conflict Resolution, and Peace Tables.

Conflict Resolution Workshop

The concepts and an overview of conflict resolution will be discussed. Different styles of handling conflict and how to create a win/win solution are included. Brief role-plays provide insight into conflict and related topics.

Workshops and Trainings

Internet Safety

Learn about internet safety for students, talks to grades 5-12 and parent seminars. Xanga, MySpace, on-line gaming, AIM, Chat Rooms, and Cyber Bullying are just some of the topics that will be discussed. Safety issues including how pedophiles work on-line and how to keep track of your child's on-line behavior are covered with parents.

Depression and Suicide

Learn the signs and symptoms of depression and suicide. Explore curricula and strategies to prevent and identify students in need of an intervention.

If It's Too loud - You're Too Old

This workshop will introduce you to the variety of subtle messages students receive in the language, lyrics, and visual images in today's media. Included in the workshop will be topics related to music such as image, gangs and drugs. This material may be offensive to some because it will be presented to you exactly as it is seen, heard, and read by the students.

Good Grief!

Learn how to talk to kids about death and dying in an age appropriate manner, including how children grieve and how to identify the issues with which a child is struggling.

How to help your (pre) teen postpone sexual involvement

The tools parents need to help their teens and pre-teens cope with the social and peer pressures that lead to early sexual involvement.

Parent/primary Caregiver Workshops

A variety of topics are available including: raising responsible children, encouragement, positive discipline, birth order and sibling rivalry, common parent traps, and raising drug-free kids.

Stressed Out! Stress is part of our everyday life.

Learn the physical effects of stress including the effects on the immune and memory systems. Stress busters for home and work will be discussed.

Physiology of Fat

Diets and their detrimental effect on our metabolism will be discussed. Learn the metabolic pathways of how our bodies store and use fat for energy. Analyze current fad "DIE"ts and learn how to manage and loose weight.

Beginning Power Walking Program

Learn the importance of exercise to fight disease and fight the battle of the bulge (Dunlap disease). Power walking is a low impact form of walking that burns more calories than jogging.

Communication and Teambuilding

Can we have a team without effective communication? Teambuilding workshops designed to meet the varied needs of our staff and student leadership teams. Learn communication styles and explore methods to communicate with difficult people.

Student Achievement Workshop

Based on The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens, the purpose of this workshop is to provide students with the skills and knowledge necessary to become effective leaders in their circle of influence. Habits 1, 2, and 3 are covered in a four-to-five hour workshop.

Don't "Just Say No", Do Something

Find out what drugs students are using and the signs and symptoms of use. Learn what you can do in your community to fight the drug epidemic that is stealing our youth. Media influences, protective factors, and risk factors for use will be discussed.

Internet Safety

The World Wide Web is a fascinating source of information and mis-information. Kids can have contact with people all over the world with the click of a mouse. Learn how to find out where they surfed and how to block them from going there again.

Reducing Rage by Building Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

Daniel Goleman, a brain researcher from Harvard, has discovered why people with a high IQ may flounder and those of modest IQ do surprisingly well. He explores a different kind of smarts called emotional intelligence. Research has demonstrated that 80% of success in life is related to EQ while 20% is related to IQ. This workshop will explore five characteristics that compose emotional intelligence and how these traits will reduce raging and violent behavior.

Communicating and Connecting with Youth by Identifying Strengths

Schools cannot educate without being able to communicate and connect. Research by Hypocrites, Jung and Myers-Briggs has shown that people dominate one of four communication styles or pathways. This workshop is about identifying strengths and exploring learning/teaching styles, careers, conflict resolution, anger management, and parent-child relationships. The purpose of this self-exploration is to reinforce how to motivate others.

Healthy Families and Children of Alcoholics Issues

This workshop talks about healthy vs. dysfunctional families and what that means. What roles do Children of Alcoholic's kids take on? What are their characteristics? How can school personnel intervene with these students?

Every Child Is Gifted- Let Me Count the Ways: Multiple Intelligence

Howard Gardner, a Harvard professor, has identified eight multiple intelligences: word strong, math strong, space strong, music strong, body strong, people strong, self strong, and nature strong. Everyone has all eight intelligences and can develop each intelligence so it is useful. We probably use more than one intelligence to do any task. This experiential workshop will examine ways to measure the different intelligences and will explore how to build on each.

Angry Hostile Students

This workshop will cover shame, drug use, depression, and other areas of influence relating to angry and hostile students. A variety of strategies to help these students will be explored.

Building A Comprehensive Violence and Drug Prevention Plan

Every school has a crisis plan. What about a prevention plan? Learn about research-based strategies and developmental assets to help every school build a comprehensive prevention plan.

Cliques, Gangs, Groups, and Families

Learn the similarities and differences in groups and how they can be addressed in school and communities.

Speakers Bureau

A variety of topics are covered through our office that may not be listed. Please call for more information.