NGB-CD DDR Guidance Document #2008-01
16 April 2008
Chapter 1
National Guard Counterdrug Program “Key National Initiative”
“Drug Free Starts With Me”
National Guard Soldiers and Airmen in uniform typify commitment. Utilizing them as resources creates the best opportunity for America’s youth to make the commitment to be drug-free.
National Guard Counterdrug Program “Key National Initiative”
Stay on Track
The National Guard is committed to reducing future substance abuse by reinforcing the drug-free commitment of America’s youth through:
1. Cognitive Development
2. Social Skills Development
3. Emotional Development
Stay on Track is a classroom innovation developed to:
1. Deliver motivational, student-focused, and teacher-friendly substance abuse education.
2. Prevent and/or reduce barriers to learning.
3. Provide lessons in practical living, learning to accept personal responsibility, and making responsible choices.
How does Stay on Track work?
Stay on Track uses evidence-based prevention science, combined with the popular appeal of motorsports, to introduce and reinforce important prevention concepts. Examples include: effective strategies for teamwork, the importance of keeping both the human body and engine running at optimal levels of performance, knowing how to deal with stressful situations, how to make correct split-second decisions, and how to set and achieve goals.
How does Stay on Track meet student learning standards?
1. Stay on Track contributes directly to middle school level National Learning Standards for students in Health, Life Science, and Language Arts.
2. Stay on Track uses instruction and assessment to enhance the optimal physical, mental, social, and emotional development of students necessary for lifelong health and learning.
Stay on Track
Program Framework
Several decades of research have demonstrated that youth drug involvement is the result of a complex interplay between external influences, including parents, family, and the community; genetic vulnerability; and individual characteristics. These individual characteristics include mental health status, academic achievement, decision-making skills, resistance skills, and perceptions of norms and harmfulness.
Guiding school-based drug prevention programs, is the theory that the risk factors associated with youth drug involvement can be mitigated with the use of classroom-based instruction techniques. School-based drug prevention curricula that aim to impart either increased understanding (correcting perceived norms about “how many other kids my age are taking drugs”), or increased capacity (developing resistance skills, decision-making ability, or stress management) have been proven effective in reducing the likelihood of drug involvement.
Defining, specifically, what the prevention target would be was one of the most important considerations during initial development of the program. In other words, the developer (NCPRS) had to decide whether they were trying to prevent the onset of drug use, or new cases. Were they concerned with reducing drug use or eliminating it? And, lastly, did they want to decrease the likelihood of harmful effects subsequent to drug use? Previous national and local surveys of the age group chosen to target, namely middle-school students, had clearly demonstrated that there was a variety of drug use patterns already established within this group. Some students had neither been offered drugs, nor had they started to use any drug, whether it was alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana. Some had been offered drugs, but not tried them; whereas, some others were infrequent, but regular, users of alcohol, tobacco, or inhalants. A minority were regular, frequent users of these substances, and other substances such as cocaine. In short, this age group constitutes a heterogeneous group, with respect to their experiences with drugs, and, therefore, a multi-target approach, while challenging, was the most practical in order to reach the variety of students. Special emphasis would be given, however, to alcohol, tobacco, and inhalants, given their prominence among this group. It was anticipated that the baseline evaluation information would provide up-to-date information on the usage patterns of substances, other than alcohol, inhalants, and tobacco, to test our assumption.
Rationale for a Three-Level Design
Ideally, Stay on Track is designed to be presented over a three-year period, spanning the years of transition from elementary to high school. It is intended that students in 6th grade receive Level One. These same students would receive Level Two in the 7th grade, and, finally, Level Three in the 8th grade. This multi-year approach is supported by scientific research, and shown to be more effective than “single-shot” interventions.
In this model, general concepts are introduced in the earliest year (Level One). More specific facets of these concepts are presented in Level Two, with the highest level of complexity introduced in Level Three. An example of this begins with the general concept of the body as a machine being introduced in Level One. Then, in Level Two, the comparison of the lungs to an air filter is presented, as well as how “pollutants” affect the performance of both. Finally, the mechanism by which tobacco smoke causes damage to cells is established in Level Three.
Two important challenges arise in following this model: 1) it is important that the activities contained within the lessons be so similar from year to year that they will “turn off” an older student to the idea of drug use, and 2) the presentation of more technical material in the later years must be done in such a way, so as not to lose the initial concept in the details.
*** Detailed technical data referencing the Stay on Track program is posted on the secure (password protceted) side of the SOT website (www.stayontrack-online.com) under “Tool Kit.”***
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