Discusses two key components in successful schools which should be applied to alternative schools for at-risk youth: keeping students from failing, and giving students warm, interpersonal support. Some successful strategies include individual curricula and evaluation, evaluation based on progress rather than normative grades, joint projects that…

Describes Preventive Discipline Project, which uses self-control curriculum keyed to school situations that require students to demonstrate self-control. Focuses on five foundations of self-control: controlling impulses, assessing social reality, managing group situations, coping with stress, and solving social problems. Concludes that social…

Describes school-based Student Assistance Programs (SAPs), which are designed to reduce adolescents' substance abuse. Notes that SAPs, modeled after Employee Assistance Programs in workplace, are identifying, assessing, referring, and managing cases of substance-abusing students. Sees adoption of SAP model as accelerating in response to growing…

Describes an inservice institute that familiarized teachers with the pressures that lead students to commit suicide and a program for troubled students. (FL)

A study comparing the problems of adolescent mothers returning to school and taking part in a parent-infant program, returning adolescent mothers not enrolled in the program, and dropout mothers presents evidence strongly supporting parent-infant programs. (JMF)

Encourages counselors to incorporate poetry into student counseling. Client poems many times serve as a way to uncover student concerns. Reading and writing, particularly in free verse, can often accelerate the counseling process. (RJM)

In this project, problem students from grades 9 through 12 attending the only high school in a small West Tennessee town were placed in a small group counseling situation consisting of a mixture of blacks and whites, males and females, from low and middle socioeconomic levels. Counselors and consultants serving as group facilitators included both…

This monograph provides principals and school officials with information about coping with adolescent suicide. Section 1, "Introduction," discusses the uncomfortable nature of the topic, cites statistics, and recommends that preventive programs be developed. Section 2, "Causes of Suicide," analyzes stress and depression among youth and suggests…

Students who are involved in middle school alternative education programs are often labeled as severely disruptive. They have a history of physical violence, abusive language, truancy, and sometimes police arrests and juvenile detention records. These students need to learn how to deal with stress-producing events in a more socially acceptable…

The research summarized in this report is a longitudinal study of the effectiveness of a particular type of alternative secondary school in improving the behavior of delinquent and disruptive students. Three alternative school programs which provide students with experiences of success and social support from teachers are described. The…

Describes innovative school programs for students at risk for alcohol and other drug problems. Describes model programs in Puget Sound school districts as involving school, families, community agencies, and youth in efforts to create school environments free of substance abuse and violence. (Author/NB)

A training model for the use of rational behavior therapy (RBT) with emotionally disturbed adolescents in a school setting is presented, including a structured, didactic format consisting of five basic RBT training techniques. The training sessions, lasting 10 weeks each, are described. Also presented is the organization for the actual classroom…

Describes Positive Peer Culture (PPC), a school-based program for teaching social skills to adolescents, especially those in foster care or juvenile justice residential settings. Outlines problem types, discusses formal and informal group meetings and benefits of PPC (critical thinking, participatory democracy, real-world literacy, business…