A wide variety of prevention approaches that reduce substance use and associated problems have been developed and tested. But successes have been limited in promoting the use of these scientific advances by the policy makers, practitioners, and concerned citizens. The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention's six regional Centers for the Application…

The image of the schools and the teaching profession according to the media is usually negative. The negative picture is one reflecting the social problems of society and the failure of schools to educate, that is, drop-outs, teenage pregnancies, substance abuse, guns, knives, and attacks on students and teachers. Occasionally, the positive…

Dramatic increases in child welfare rates in Canada over recent years have been largely driven by an increased reporting of neglect cases (Trocme, Fallon, MacLaurin, & Neves, 2005). To a large extent, exploring the importance of neglect separate from physical maltreatment has been ignored in the child maltreatment literature. This study…

By examining specific examples of how teachers at an adolescent treatment centre interpret the day to day challenges that shape the lives of their students, insights can be gained about how schools can effectively re-connect even the most difficult students to a school environment. This article describes a story about an adolescent treatment…

Cluster analysis of 139 partner violent men's self-reports on the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory identified profiles reflecting pathological anger (PA), low anger control (LAC), and normal anger (NA). The PA group self-reported higher pretreatment partner abuse, interpersonal dysfunction, distress, and substance abuse and had lower…

The transition to high school has been identified as a potentially difficult time in adolescents' lives. Reductions in both academic and social functioning often accompany this transition. While these effects have been documented in urban youth, the move to high school has not been extensively studied in rural minority youth. Toward that end, the…

This paper reviews the literature on ambulatory substance abuse treatment for adolescents, including brief intervention, Twelve-Step-based outpatient treatment, family-based treatment, cognitive behavioral therapy, and pharmacologic treatment. An overview of socially and culturally specific strategies is also included. The diversity of settings…

Background: A conceptual framework about protective factors (models protection, controls protection, support protection) and risk factors (models risk, opportunity risk, vulnerability risk) was employed to articulate the content of five psychosocial contexts of adolescent life--individual, family, peers, school, and neighborhood--in a study of…

This study investigated recovering and nonrecovering substance abuse counselors' beliefs about the etiology and treatment of substance abuse disorders. Qualitative methods were used to investigate these variables. Analysis of the data revealed several key findings with implications for future research. (Contains 1 table.)

Background: Although parental divorce is associated with increased substance use and internalizing problems, experiencing the separation of one's parents may not cause these outcomes. The relations may be due to genetic or environmental selection factors, characteristics that lead to both marital separation and offspring functioning. Method: We…

Objective: This article describes the development and initial validation of the 90-item Chinese Positive Youth Development Scale (CPYDS), which contains items related to 15 aspects of positive youth development. Method: Adolescents with well adjustment ( N = 162) and poor adjustment (N = 160) responded to the CPYDS. Results: The findings showed…

Relatively little is known about characteristics of sexual assault survivors who present to the emergency room. Examination of differences in survivor, assault, and exam characteristics by type of offender (intimate partner, acquaintance, acquaintance-just-met, and stranger) was conducted using intake data collected from 331 women who presented to…

Substance abuse is one of the most problematic health risk behaviors among adolescents. Given that research consistently finds increased levels of substance use among adolescents with conduct problems as well as trauma-related symptoms, it is important that substance abuse be examined to better understand its role in Conduct Disorder (CD) and…

Evidence-based substance use prevention programs have proliferated in schools and are being adopted by districts in rural settings and internationally. Little attention, however, has been paid to the adaptation process that occurs when these programs are moved to different contexts. In this commentary, the authors draw upon their experience with…

Dually diagnosed patients with chemical dependency and a comorbid psychiatric disorder typically show poor compliance with aftercare treatment, which may result in costly and pervasive individual and societal problems. In this study, the authors investigated the effect of adding motivational interviewing in a group format to standard treatment for…