LifeSkills Training Evaluation - Minnesota
Creators: name: Somers, Marie-Andree
name: Team, Arnold Ventures Evidence-Based Policy
name: Merrick, Weston
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: Education
subject: behavioral health; middle school intervention; social and emotional learning; substance use

description: Substance use and other risky behaviors increase substantially when students get to high school. Some mental health outcomes, such as feelings of depression and anxiety, also increase as students get older. This pattern of findings points to the importance of intervening early, when students are in middle school level, to better prepare them to make informed decisions when they get to high school. The LifeSkills Training (LST) curriculum is a low-cost, social and emotional curriculum for middle school students that aims to reduce substance abuse and other risky behaviors, and to promote positive mental health and academic outcomes. The LST curriculum works by teaching middle school students about the consequences of substance abuse and helps them develop the social, self-management and resistance skills they need to make better decisions and navigate difficult situations. The LST curriculum has 3 levels, which can be offered in grades 6-8 or grades 7-9. LST is a universal (whole school) curriculum, so schools are expected to provide LST to all (or almost all) students in the school. In prior studies, LST graduates were less likely to use cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana when they got to high school. Two Minnesota state agencies – the Department of Human Services (DHS) and Minnesota Management and Budget (MMB) – were awarded a Moving the Needle grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF) to implement the LST curriculum in about 35 middle schools in Minnesota. As part of this grant, schools will be implementing the LST curriculum for four school years, from fall 2020 to spring 2024. The state will provide the necessary resources for schools to implement the LST curriculum, including teacher training, on-going implementation and technical support to teachers during the school year, and all curriculum materials. More Minnesota middle schools have applied to the state to implement LST than the grant can support. Therefore, a school-level random assignment research design will be used to select which schools will get LST. This will make it possible to rigorously evaluate questions related to the impact of LST on students’ outcomes. The effects of LST on students’ outcomes will be assessed at two points in time: in middle school when students are receiving the intervention, and in high school when students are at higher risk of engaging in unsafe behaviors. The evaluation will examine the impact of LST on four domains of behavior and health that the curriculum aims to affect: substance use; mental health and psychosocial outcomes; aggressive and delinquent behaviors; and engagement in school. During the middle school follow-up, the evaluation will also examine the effect of LST on the skills and attitudes that the curriculum aims to affect in the short-term (mediators) – that is, self-management skills, general social skills, social resistance skills, and attitudes and beliefs about substance use – as well as the impact of the LST curriculum on school climate, as measured by students’ feelings of being safe at their school.