Youth Services
Prevention Services for Youth
Employee & Family Resources® Prevention Specialists work with kids of all ages (as well as with families, educators, community organizations, businesses and policy makers) to promote choices for healthy lifestyles.
What’s a Prevention Specialist?
A Prevention Specialist is someone who is specially trained to encourage healthy attitudes and behaviors that prevent the abuse of alcohol, other drugs, and violence.
What does a Prevention Specialist do?
He or she works to empower individuals and communities, to assess needs, and to develop and implement strategies that effectively meet those needs.
Among other things, a Prevention Specialist from Employee & Family Resources:
- performs seven Core Functions: community assessment, program development, communication, program delivery, evaluation, record keeping, and consultation.
- applies six strategies to programming: information dissemination, education, alternatives, problem identification and referral, community-based process, and environmental.
- collaborates with dozens of different community groups for the purpose of providing prevention services.
- facilitates research-based curricula accepted by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) certification, Department of Education’s Safe & Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSCA), and the Department of Justices’ Office for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
What are some examples of Prevention programming Employee & Family Resources Prevention Specialist can provide for kids?
Here is a list of a few of the programs our prevention staff uses in the Polk County, Iowa communities we serve.
- Media Sharp
Young people learn to critically assess how media normalize, glamorize, and create the role models for unhealthy lifestyles and behaviors (specifically tobacco and alcohol abuse). Audience: 5th through 7th grade. Curriculum: 14 activities included in 6 to 8 sessions, depending on the length of the class period. - Flashpoint: Life Skills Through
the Lens of Media Literacy
The program does not teach that media is bad or good. Kids learn to question behaviors in media that involve violence, substance abuse and prejudice. Students become conscientious consumers. Audience: 7th through 12th graders. Curriculum: 12 sessions. Students view film segments and investigate print media, to develop critical thinking, cognitive skills, and awareness and appreciation of differences through cooperative learning and interactivity. - Project TNT: Toward No Tobacco Use
Sessions cover the following topics: listening skills, tobacco information, consequences of tobacco use, decision making, self-esteem, changing negative thoughts, being true to yourself, effective communication skills, assertiveness training, refusal skills, advertising analysis, social activism, and making a public commitment to stay tobacco free. Audience: 4th through 7th graders. Curriculum: 10 sessions with group exercises as well as written assignments. Kids practice skills, create an advertisement, and role-play. - Get Real About Violence (GRAV)
The program focuses on three components: 1) Vulnerability to Violence, 2) Contributors to Violence, 3) Alternatives to Violence. Audience: Kindergarten through 12th graders. Curriculum: Newsletters, lecture, hands on skill-building activities, videos and worksheets are incorporated for positive student involvement. - Second Step
The approach is to develop skills in empathy, impulse control and anger management implementing the curriculum with students, parents and teachers. Audience: Pre-kindergarten through 9th graders. Curriculum: Multiple lessons using cognitive and behavioral teaching modalities. Can include parents and teachers. - Safe Dates
Dating violence prevention program targets attitudes and behaviors associated with dating violence. Topics include caring relationships defining dating abuse, how to help friends in abusive relationships, dealing with anger, and sexual assault. Audience: Middle- and High School-aged youth. Curriculum: 9 sessions with research-based Curriculum. - Project Alert
Program objectives include motivating students to resist pressures to use drugs, increasing their perception of harmful consequences from substance abuse, and to help teen identify alternatives to using substances. Primarily focuses on alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and inhalants. Audience: 6th through 8th graders. Curriculum: Research-based ATOD curriculum that includes 11 core lessons and three “booster” lessons the following year. - Life Skills Training (LST)
LST works with a diverse range of teens to reduce substance abuse. Lessons covered promote healthy life skills: self-image and self-improvement; decision-making; tobacco, alcohol and marijuana information; advertising; anxiety; communication/social skills; assertiveness. Audience: 6th through 8th graders. Curriculum: 15 lesson plans for 6th graders. 10 lessons for 7ths graders and 5 lessons for 8th graders. Reported effectiveness: 75% reduction in tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use; 66% reduction in polydrug use; effective with white, African-American and Hispanic youth. - Customized Programming
Programs can be developed to meet specific needs of any youth population within the communities served.
What prevention services can Employee & Family Resources offer educators and community leaders?
Our prevention specialists are often included on discussion panels or do presentations for large and small groups interested in reducing substance abuse and violence among youth. They can also be your resource connection to research, problem assessment and referral programs, treatment programs, significant community and cultural issues affecting prevention, and organizations dedicated to youth wellness.