# Presentation: 304429

## SCHOOLS WITHIN COMMUNITIES: 

- THE ICE IN THE COCKTAIL GLASS

## TWO GENERAL APPROACHES TO UNDERAGE DRINKING PREVENTION

- Directed towards individual youth and based in their selected environments (school, family, rec group)
- Based in the greater community environment in which all youth and adults live

## INDIVIDUALLY FOCUSED

- Provide alcohol education
- Teach communication and resistance skills
- Introduce to alternatives to drinking

## CHALLENGES FOR INDIVIDUALLY FOCUSED PREVENTION

- Programs and policies designed to change or control behavior USUALLY only work within the environment where they are supported and reinforced.
- Need to be redone with every new group of young people
- Research consistently shows that ind. focused programs have only marginal effect on student alcohol use and community alcohol problems.*
- *PIRE Report, Sept. 2003

## Youth drink within the context of a  society in which alcohol use is normative behavior and images about alcohol are pervasive.

## Alcohol does not make you feel good
Alcohol does not relieve stress
You can have fun without drinking
How much do we say is OK for adults?
Combating alcohol promotion in advertisement

- Alcohol does not relieve stress
- You can have fun without drinking
- How much do we say is OK for adults?
- Combating alcohol promotion in advertisement

- Education vs. Community Alcohol Messages

## “Holding young people responsible for reducing underage drinking is like holding fish accountable for dying in a polluted stream”*

*Penny Norton, FACES Corp.

- *Penny Norton, FACES Corp.

## ENVIRONMENTAL PREVENTION

- Based on the view  that alcohol use does not occur in isolation or in a vacuum.  It holds that individuals engage in drinking not just because of personal choice, but also because they have been strongly influenced by factors in the environment.

## AND

- “Youth usually obtain alcohol, either directly or indirectly from adults.  Efforts to reduce underage drinking, therefore, need to focus on adults and must engage the society at large.”
*Institute of Medicine, National Research Council of the National Academies.*

## ENVIRONMENTAL-FOCUSED STRATEGIES:

- Reduce access to alcohol
- Spur changes in normative beliefs about the acceptability, and level of risk associated with underage  drinking.

## ADVANTAGES OF ENVIROMENTAL PREVENTION

- Broad reach
- Substantial effects
- Immediate and  sustainable effects
- Cost effective and ease of maintenance

## IDEALLY, WE DO BOTH INDIVIDUAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL PREVENTION

- Students need the information and skills to make healthy choices and carry them out.
- Students need a community (environment) that will support and reinforce healthy choices.

## STUDENTS

- The cornerstone of environmental change is an active and informed citizenry, concerned with and involved in community life and participating in decisions regarding local alcohol policies.

## STUDENTS, cont.

- Students should be more that passive recipients of information.  They should be challenged to be involved in community life as change agents.

## Environmental prevention should be used to compliment traditional courses, enhance  students’ educational experience, and bridge the gap between the community and the school.

## BECAUSE I SAID, “NO”.

## SCHOOL ATHLETIC ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND OTHER DRUG USE POLICIES

## ENFORCING UNDERAGE DRINKING LAWS

## SOCIAL HOST ORDINANCES