Programs for young adolescents that depend upon voluntary participation need to entertain and engage the youth in activities designed to attract and retain the youth. Indiana's new Local Prevention Services Coalitions Initiative has established more than 300 new, exciting, youth-centered prevention programs across the state. These new programs are locally-developed, but meet minimum standards developed by the state, to assure program integrity. Indiana's new prevention initiative provides entertaining youth development programming in a safe, adult supervised environment. Entertaining educational activities are incorporated in a context of structured and unstructured supportive activities that help youth develop positive social relationships with pro-social peers.
Parents say that it provides enrichment and structure in the after-school hours.
Three Critical Years, Three Critical Hours Data from the Indiana Prevention Resource Center's annual survey, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Use by Indiana Children and Adolescents reveal that nearly two-thirds of all new drug experimentation in Indiana begins between the end of sixth grade and the end of ninth grade. Since the goal of prevention is to stop problems before they start , Indiana first identfied the non-using population that was most likely to begin using, and then implemented programs timed to reach that population when it was most vulnerable. Research identified young adolescents aged ten through fourteen as the population most likely to begin using, and the afternoon hours between 3 and 6 p.m. as the time that population was most vulnerable. Carnegie Corporation, 1994. Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development.