Prevention Briefs

This brief defines trauma and uses a developmental perspective to discuss its prevalence and effect on young children, school-aged children, and adolescents.

Element 2 focuses on ATOD prevention activities, with a specific focus on decreasing the percentage of students who use alcohol and other drugs.

The focus of element 4 is to provide needed mental health services for students both within school and from community mental health providers.

This prevention brief presents some of the challenges faced by SS/HS initiatives and their partners in engaging parents and suggests specific strategies for bringing families into SS/HS partnershi

In recent years, schools and communities have experienced a rise in aggression, delinquency, and bullying among girls and young women. According to a recent report issued in 2008 by the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, “from 1991 to 2000, arrests of girls increased more (or decreased less) than arrests of boys for most types of [violent] offenses.

Few suicides or suicide attempts take place in schools. But the suicide of a student— even if it takes place off campus—will reverberate through a school, causing extreme emotional distress among students, staff, and parents; disrupting normal activities for weeks; and, in rare cases, provoking “copycat” suicides by emotionally vulnerable children.

The National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention, through its technical assistance provision to Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) grantees, promotes coordinated lin

The school’s contribution to solving the problems of substance abuse and violence among youth lie in comprehensive approaches.

It can be difficult to assess the work of an evaluator, especially if you do not have experience working with evaluators or understand evaluation methods and theories. It is helpful to lay out your expectations for how you would like to work with your evaluator during the recruitment process.

Protective factors are characteristics statistically associated with a decrease in vulnerability to

Multisystemic Therapy (MST) is a family-based treatment model for adolescents exhibiting serious antisocial behaviors such as violence, delinquency, and substance abuse.

The rate of prescription drug abuse among adolescents has increased dramatically over the past decade.

Bullying is a form of emotional and physical abuse that is characterized by a power imbalance in which a bully chooses victims that he or she perceives as vulnerable. Bullying is deliberate and repeated over time. It can occur in different forms, for example:

Mentors can change the lives of young people. A review of the literature on mentoring¹ concluded the following:

Thirty years ago, most prevention efforts relied on fear. They tried to convince young people that smoking or using drugs would damage their health and ruin their futures.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process by which children and young people acquire and develop skills that support learning, positive behavior, and constructive social relationships.

Element One of the Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) Initiative focuses on activities that foster a safe school environment and prevent violence.

Despite the pain, hardship, and disruption of their early lives, many foster youth are unbelievably resilient individuals.

Compulsory school attendance is a reflection of the importance our nation places on education as well as a recognition that regular attendance is necessary if education is to effectively prepare a child for adulthood.