Ask the U.S. Department of Education, National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. All have endorsed the Iowa Strengthening Families Program as a model prevention program. Developed by Virginia Molgaard, associate professor of human development and family studies and a researcher at the Rural Mental Health Center, the program is based on a similar one developed at the University of Utah. It involves a series of two- hour lessons for both parents and their children. For the first hour, parents and children separate.
Kids learn to set goals, deal with stress, handle peer pressure and make good friends.
Parents work on setting house rules, encouraging good behavior and communicating effectively during disagreements with their children. In the last hour of each session, parents and children practice their new skills together through activities, games and role play. Each exercise is intended to help parents and kids see things from the other's point of view and encourage discussion that might be ignored once a stressful situation passes. In 1993, the Strengthening Families program was put to the test in more than 400 rural southern Iowa families with sixth graders. Families filled out questionnaires before and after the program and were videotaped in family discussions.