Chapter 9: The Use of Law for Prevention in the Public Interest

Summary

One of the most important functions of law and the legal system is to prevent harm by regulating conduct prospectively. Almost all law—whether in the form of a statute enacted by a legislative body or a judgment decreed by a court—is designed, at least in part, to avoid some socially undesirable future state of affairs. This chapter explores some of the more significant ways in which lawmaking (both legislative and judicial) may be regarded as a form of prevention and the legal system may be used for prevention in the public interest. Although the chapter focuses on litigation and legislation of particular interest to those in the fields of mental health and mental retardation, the legal processes and principles described extend to many other areas of law with implications for promoting health and preventing harm.     

Chapter 7: The Roles of Religion in Prevention and Promotion

Summary

Religion represents an important resource for efforts to prevent significant personal and social problems. Yet, far from a unitary phenomena, religions embody fundamentally different world views, interpersonal communities, and practices. This chapter describes the diverse pathways through which religions attempt to influence both the individual congregation member and the larger community and society. The varied implications of these pathways for the well-being of the individual and the social system are considered. Drawing from case studies, several distinctive roles of religion are distilled, roles which raise general questions and challenges for preventive and promotive workers in diverse disciplines. Finally, directions for more effective collaboration between religion and allied disciplines are discussed.     

Building Community Coalitions with People with Disabilities and Their Families

Summary

This chapter describes the processes believed to affect the performance of regional economies and the mechanisms that might connect these processes to the etiology of behavioral disorder. The initial findings of a major study of these linkages will also be summarized (based on Catalan &; Dooley, 1983; Dooley &; Catalano, 1984a, 1984b). The implications of this literature for economic policy and for the provision of mental health services are also surveyed.     

An Experimental Evaluation of an Internet-Delivered Conflict Resolution Skills Curriculum in a Secondary School Setting

Abstract

Given the Internet's capacity to reach a wide audience and recent increases in violence-related episodes among our nation's youth, Internet-delivered, interactive conflict resolution programs may prove to be a powerful tool to prevent the growing phenomena of adolescent violence. In this study, we tested the efficacy of an Internet-delivered conflict resolution program. Specifically, the program emphasizes the development of conflict management skills, which may decrease future use of violent tactics to manage conflict. One hundred ninety-eight 9th grade students from a large urban area high school (64 = control; 134 = experimental) participated in the study. Results indicated that students exposed to the conflict management program reported an increase in knowledge of conflict management skills and negative attitudes toward violence.     

The Role of Community in Facilitating Service Utilization

SUMMARY

Guided by an integrated theory of parent participation, this study examines the role community characteristics play in influencing a parent's decision to use voluntary child abuse prevention programs. Multiple regression techniques were used to determine if different community characteristics, such as neighborhood distress and the community's ratio of caregivers to those in need of care, predict service utilization levels in a widely available home visiting program. Our findings suggest that certain community characteristics are significant predictors of the extent to which families utilize voluntary family supports over and above the proportion of variance explained by personal characteristics and program experiences. Contrary to our initial assumptions, however, new parents living in the most disorganized communities received more home visits than program participants living in more organized communities. The article concludes with recommendations on how community capacity building might be used to improve participant retention.     

Supporting and Strengthening Family Functioning

Abstract

The thesis of this article is that family resource programs which employ prevention models fail to recognize that the prevention of poor outcomes cannot be equated with the strengthening of family functioning. Evidence from divergent but conceptually coherent lines of research is presented which indicates that the absence of problems does not necessarily mean the presence of positive functioning. The use of promotion models which are more consistent with the aims and principles of family resource programs is advanced as a way of bridging the gap between intervention models, family support principles, and family resource program practices.     

Protecting Children from the Consequences of Divorce

Summary

The procedures for the Divorce Adjustment Project, a prevention program for children of divorce, are based on three processes: the psychological problems common to many children, aspects of the divorce which hamper child adjustment, and program evaluation data spanning ten years of operation. This fourteen session program consists of two elements: the Children's Support Group and the Kidsbook. The cognitive-behavioral CSGs teach communication, impulse control, decision making, and anger control skills. The Special Topics work to enhance children's self-esteem and provide emotionalsupport and assist children in understanding the divorce events. The Kidsbook assists children in applying the skills learned in the groups to the home, classroom and playground and to foster a productive parental involvement. Practical issues dictating the structure of the program include recruitment, program goals, and the fit between participant characteristics and program elements.     

Identifying Potential Drinking-Driving Recidivists

Abstract

Family resource programs are a set of principles and a compendium of program characteristics that respond to today's urgent need to reorient policies and services for families. Premises underlying program development and the origins from which program concepts are defined are discussed, as are applications of family resource principles and programs at the state level, in child-focused programs, and in conjunction with medical and mental health services. Current challenges faced by program developers and policymakers are presented, with a perpective that those issues will be pivotal in shaping the future of both the family resource movement and the field of human services at large.     

The New Zealand Model for Prevention of Cyberviolence

Abstract

In 1998, New Zealand's Internet Safety Group established a national initiative to prevent cyberviolence through education. This organization developed a comprehensive program that included sending an Internet Safety Kit to every school in the country, stimulating research on Internet use in New Zealand, and co-hosting a national symposium on the social impact of the Internet. This article looks at who is participating in the Group, what strategies they have used, what they have been able to achieve and their plans for future development.     

Chapter 10: Preventive Interventions in the Environment

Summary

This chapter describes preventively-oriented efforts at developing more satisfactory natural and built environments. Programs dealing with the collection and disposal of solid waste and the design of court facilities are presented as examples of the contributions municipal officials, citizen groups, environmentalists, engineers, architects, and psychologists have made in these areas. A final section highlights the general issues illustrated by current efforts in environmental intervention, including the complexities of initiating and sustaining preventive efforts at environmental change.     

An Assessment of the Relationship Between the Quality of School-Based Tobacco Prevention Programs and Youth Tobacco Use

SUMMARY

This study presents data from an assessment of substance use prevention programs in 23 elementary and middle schools in northern and central Illinois. The quality of prevention programming was assessed based on program intensity, focus on tobacco, staff resources designated for prevention programs, and implementation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations for tobacco prevention. Data from these four dimensions were used to calculate a Quality Index Score. Multilevel logistic regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between individual level variables, school level variables and the outcomes of reported current tobacco use, intent to use tobacco in the coming year, and perceived efficacy of substance use prevention programs. No significant effects were found, indicating that exclusive use of even high quality school-based prevention programs may not be sufficient in changing youth behavior. However, school-based prevention programs may be an important component of a broader ecological approach that uses multiple, community-wide strategies to promote normative change.     

Alcohol Abuse Prevention Among High-Risk Youth

Abstract

This study examined the feasibility of a CD-ROM intervention to prevent alcohol abuse among high-risk youths. Youths from 41 community-based agencies in greater New York City participated in a randomized trial of a skills-based interactive CD-ROM. Outcome data were collected on 489 early adolescents in these agencies before and after a randomized subset of youths interacted with a 10-session alcohol abuse prevention program on CD-ROM. Compared to control participants, youths in the intervention arm had a positive increase in perceived harm of alcohol use and increased assertiveness skills. At posttest, drinking rates for control and intervention participants were equal and unchanged from pretest. These findings suggest that CD-ROM technology offers a new and promising medium for engaging high-risk youth in an alcohol abuse prevention program. Study implications and future applications of the present approach are discussed.     

Building a Foundation Against Violence

Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of the Too Good for Violence Prevention Program (TGFV), a multifaceted interactive intervention. Grounded in Bandura's Social Learning Theory, the TGFV curricula focus on developing personal and interpersonal skills to solve conflict non-violently and resist social influences that lead to violence. Participants were 999 third grade students and 46 teachers in ten elementary schools. The schools were matched on student characteristics and academic performance and assigned to treatment or control conditions. Teachers and students completed checklists assessing students' behaviors prior to, following, and 20 weeks after program delivery. Results show that treatment students, as compared to control students, were perceived by teachers as evidencing more frequent use of personal and social skills and of prosocial behaviors after program delivery. Student survey data show that treatment students, as compared to control students, evidenced more positive scores in the areas of emotional competency skills, social and resistance skills, and communication skills after program delivery. The benefits of the TGFV program continued to be observed at the 20-week follow-up.     

A Multidimensional Ecological Examination of a Youth Development Program for Military Dependent Youth

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to conduct a multi-method evaluation to investigate the effectiveness of a youth development program for military dependent youth entitled, Youth Action Program. The dimensions of an ecological program are used to examine the program post-de-facto. The comparison with elements of ecological programming provided reasons as to this program's perceived impact and its weaknesses. A multi-dimensional evaluation is employed that examines the processes and outcomes in their natural settings. Youth and parents overwhelmingly believed that this program had made a positive difference in their lives. Youth demonstrated an improvement, although not significant, in their self-concept; however, participating youths' levels of social isolation and withdrawal from social contact remained at a high level. The results and need for future research are presented related to evaluating youth development programs and the ecological model.     

An Ecological Paradigm

Abstract

Consultation is defined as a preventive service, the goal of which is to create a variety of social, economic, and psychological resources for the continued development of the consultee organization. Ten principles are presented for the assessment and development of the consultee organization. These principles focus upon ways to generate social support and self-direction for the individual members and for the total organization. The framework for the presentation of the principles is an ecological perspective which emphasizes the concepts of persons, settings, and events as resources for the individual members of the organization and the total organization. Ecological concepts are presented, such as interdependence and adaptation, to direct the work of the consultation. Working from an ecological perspective, the consultant focuses upon assessing the natural social processes that bind persons and social settings together, while also assessing the prospects for how new social processes can be generated. Consultation succeeds as a preventive service when the organization is able to identify and create its own resources internally and then link to other external resources. This chapter provides the orienting framework for four case examples in the following chapters.     

School Violence in Children and Adolescents

Abstract

This article reviews school violence prevention programs that were published between the years of 1990 and 1999. All the interventions fitting inclusion criteria involved being implemented in a school setting, using a control group, and including a quantitative methodology. Effect sizes were calculated for the final sixteen articles that were reviewed in the meta-analysis. A process of inspection was used in order to come up with treatment characteristics most common to each prevention program. Each study was thus described according to six categories: theoretical base, setting, age group, leader training, duration, and random assignment. Four studies resulted with strong effect sizes; however, a regression analysis was not conducted due to inadequate sample size. A review of the literature suggested that program impact could be significantly affected by the use of cognitive-behavioral strategies, multi-setting atmosphere, and primary (elementary school) prevention. In addition, intuitive support (common knowledge in the social science field) indicated that a qualified program leader and longer length of program could also contribute to the influence of a program. Future researchers are encouraged to use a more comprehensive literature review (e.g., past 20 years) in terms of conducting meta-anal-yses in order to provide a larger sample size adequate enough to see the true effects of different intervention components on outcomes (regression analysis; i.e., additive component effects).     

Environmental approaches and prevention: The dangers of imprecision

Abstract

This paper urges environmental psychologists to adopt an “empiricist stance” as they focus their field's expertise on issues related to prevention in mental health. Criteria for such a stance are presented which presume that preventive interventions evolve sequentially from a program of research which clarifies the nature, epidemiology, etiological mechanisms and natural history of the mental illness or psychological dysfunction to be prevented. The rationale for this stance is based on empirical, political and ethical grounds. The applicability of this stance to the current status of the emerging field of environmental approaches to prevention in mental health is reviewed specifically in relation to the contributions to the special issue of Prevention in Human Services.