www.canadianhomeandschool.com
Toolkit for Parents & Parent-Leaders
Financed by the Health
Canada Community Inititives Fund
Parents and drugs: Connecting parent leaders with high quality resources on
student substance use issues
Introduction
This
toolkit has been prepared by the Canadian Home and School Federation and its
partners (see next page) with core funding from Health Canada’s Community Initiatives Fund. The aim of the toolkit is to help
parent leaders across Canada take action on student substance use problems.
Alcohol
and other drug problems take a huge social and economic toll on families,
communities and Canada as a whole. Substance use problems have been estimated to cost
Canadians $18 billion annually. Its toll on individual families can be
incalculable.
It is
not accurate or helpful to term the current situation an “epidemic”. The recent
history of drug problems is a history of new drugs emerging from time to time,
some of which have great potential for harm. However the substances that
represent the greatest burden to our society have been with us for a long time:
alcohol and tobacco.
There
is good reason to give focused attention to student substance use within this
larger picture. Young people in Canada tend to use substances in riskier ways than do older people, and
this can result in big problems in the short and long term. The younger an
adolescent or child is when they begin use of a substance the greater the
chance of harms. If, by early adulthood, a person does not use alcohol, tobacco
or illegal substances, they probably never will.
Many
need to be involved in addressing community drug problems, but clearly parents
have a huge part to play, not only in their parenting role, but as volunteers
and leaders. This toolkit has been assembled to assist. It presents high
quality resources for Canadian parents to support them in each of these roles.
It also provides sample presentations and background info sheets that parent
leaders can refer to in organizing or making presentations to other parents.
2
Contents
Introduction
Partners list
1. The role of parents in preventing student
substance use problems
1A. The preventive
role of individual parents
Featured resources
1B. The preventive
role of parents as volunteers
Featured resources
1C. The preventive
role of parent leaders
Featured resources
2. Sample parent workshop agenda and slides
3. Background info sheets
3A. Summary of
student substance use patterns in Canada
3B. Risk and
protective factors for youth substance use
3C. Factors
determining substance use effects and harms
3D. Harms linked to
substance use
3E. What works and
what doesn’t in the prevention of youth substance use problems
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Parents and drugs: Connecting parent
leaders with high quality resources on student substance use issues
A
project by the Canadian Home and School Federation in partnership with:
Provincial/territorial
home and school associations/councils and other parent bodies
Canadian
Association of Principals
Canadian
Centre on Substance Abuse
Canadian
Nurses Association
Canadian
Public Health Association
Canadian
Teachers Federation
Mothers
Against Drunk Driving
Royal
Canadian Mounted Police
Acknowledgements:
Much of the work associated with
this project has been contracted to the firm, Shannon and McCall, Inc. Mary
Shannon and Doug McCall conceptualized the classification of resources and
identified many of those used in this toolkit; Gary Roberts developed the kit
contents.
Production of this resource has been
made possible through a financial contribution from Health Canada.
The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of Health Canada.
Contact:
Canadian Home and School
Federation National Office: Fisher Park School 250 Holland Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario K1Y 0Y6 Ph: 613-798-2837 Fax: 613-798-2838 Email: chsf@bellnet.ca
4
1. The role of parents in preventing student
substance use problems
This kit suggests that parents can be
involved in 3 main ways:
as
individual parents: examples: practicing effective parenting, modeling healthy
substance use attitudes and behaviours, doing assigned drug education
“homework” with their child, becoming informed on local drug issues.
as
parent volunteers: assisting or leading in setting up preventive activities in
the school or community, such as peer helper or mentoring programs, alternative
activities appealing to youth, parenting programs, dry grads.
as
parent leaders. taking the lead to advocate or mobilize the community toward
improvements in community prevention.
Parents in Canadian society are often
challenged to balance work and family commitments. To move beyond these roles
and help your child’s school or community as a volunteer or leader requires a
large commitment. However, the rewards are potentially great for everyone.
Substance use problems can occur in any
family. In cases where problems exist, it’s often hard to know where to turn.
Where ever they live, parents need to know where they can go for help.
Parents of at-risk students are sometimes
difficult to involve in their child’s school issues. Some ideas for removing
obstacles to the involvement of parents of at-risk students include: not
assigning blame; building on family strengths rather than trying to correct for
deficits; building trust; helping parents learn new techniques; recognizing
cultural differences as valued and valuable; respecting the many different
forms of families; asking parents first what they are interested in; and
creating partnerships with community agencies.
Featured resources:
Ten Strategies for involving Parents in
Health Promotion (Canadian Association for School Health)
http://www.safehealthyschools.org/Ten%20Strategies%20for%20Involving%20Parents.pdf
Finding youth treatment services: CCSA’s
Treatment services database: http://www.ccsa.ca/CCSA/EN/Addiction_Databases/TreatmentServicesForm.htm
Barriers to Parent Involvement in Health
Promotion (Canadian Association for School Health)
http://www.safehealthyschools.org/barriers%20to%20parent%20participation.pdf
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1A. The preventive role of
individual parents
Clearly, parents
have a critically important role in preventing substance use problems. In order
to play this role, it is not necessary to become a drug expert. Much of the
preventive potential of parents in fact does not come down to drug knowledge,
but rather the ability to provide a healthy growing environment for a child and
adolescent through the years. This is hugely challenging of course, and when it
comes right down to it, there are no guarantees. Parents however, can increase
the chances by paying attention to the risk and protective factors that are
within their controls as parents:
|
Risk factors (factors that increase the
chance of a substance use problems)
|
Protective factors (factors that decrease
the chance of a substance use problem)
|
|
- prenatal exposure to
alcohol, tobacco or other drugs
- poor family management,
discipline, and problem solving
- low parental monitoring
- family conflict/divorce
- family mobility
- teen parent household
- sole parent household
- low parental expectations
and support
- parental substance abuse and
deviance
- favourable attitudes toward teen alcohol, other drug use
- parents’ mental illness
- remaining in an abusive or
conflict-ridden family
- family disruption (e.g.
unemployment)
- weak parenting skills, especially for children with learning disabilities
or behavioural problems
- genetic predisposition to alcohol and other substance problems
|
- cohesive family unit,
positive bonding
- strong parent-child
attachment
- strong emotional support & absence of severe criticism
- a sense of basic trust
- high parental expectations
- clear rules and expectations
- strong parental supervision
and monitoring
|
Adolescence is a time of
curiosity and experimentation so it is not unusual for teens to try alcohol or
another substance in this country. While any use can result in problems, even
tragedy, most young people who experiment do not experience harm from their use
and they do not become harmfully involved with substances. Some, however do
continue to use substances in hazardous ways - it is difficult to predict who
may experience substance use problems, but a review of the risk and protective
factors operating in a young person’s life (not only the family-related factors
above but the range of factors listed in a later table – 3B) sheds light on this
question.
Parents interested in improving
their skills in these areas may benefit from reviewing the high quality
resources identified in this kit. Other possibilities are to check with your
child’s teacher about drug education “home work” completed by the parents and
child (these approaches have been studied and shown to be helpful). Perhaps the
most promising approach is to take a parent education program, where available,
particularly when your child is young.
A
substance use problem that Canadians are becoming increasingly aware of is
prenatal alcohol exposure. The use of alcohol during pregnancy can result in a
range of permanent effects on a child that are together termed fetal alcohol
spectrum disorder (FASD). It is still unclear how much alcohol is actually
involved in producing fetal effects, with some recent studies showing subtle
effects arising from "moderate" consumption by the mother. It is
clear, however, that the greatest risk of harm to the fetus arises from binge
drinking (five or more standard drinks on one occasion) and frequent drinking
(more than seven drinks a week).
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1A. The preventive role of
individual parents (cont’d)
Featured
Resources:
Child
and youth development:
A guide for
positive child development (Growing healthy kids)
http://www.growinghealthykids.com/english/home/index.html
Middle childhood (Child
& Family Canada)
http://www.cfc-efc.ca/docs/vocfc/00000798.htm
Adolescence (Child
& Family Canada)
http://www.cfc-efc.ca/docs/vocfc/00000799.htm
Discussing
substance use with adolescents:
AADAC parents
information service (Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission)
http://parent.aadac.com/prevention/parent_info_series.asp
Straight talk about
marijuana (Health Canada)
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/alt_formats/hecs-sesc/pdf/pubs/drugs-drogues/straight_talk-parlent_franchement/straight_talk_about_marijuana_parents.pdf
Pot and driving (Canadian
Public Health Association)
http://www.potanddriving.cpha.ca/
MADD Canada parents
section
http://www.madd.ca/english/youth/parents.html
Talking with kids
about crystal meth and other drugs (Manitoba
govt)
http://www.gov.mb.ca/crystalmeth/
A family guide to
keeping youth mentally healthy and drug-free (US Gov’t – SAMHSA)
http://www.family.samhsa.gov/
Talking with young
children about alcohol (US
– North Dakota State Univ.)
http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extpubs/yf/famsci/fs576w.htm
Parents. The
anti-drug (US
gov’t)
http://www.theantidrug.com/
Resources
parents can comfortably refer their adolescent children to:
DEAL (RCMP)
http://www.deal.org/
Aboriginal Health (Aboriginal
Youth Network)
http://www.ayn.ca/AYNHome.aspx
Drug Wise (Health
Canada)
http://drugwise-droguesoisfute.hc-sc.gc.ca/index_e.asp
ZOOT2 (Alberta
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission)
http://www.zoot2.com/
Support line –
problems: talking with parents (UK
charity)
http://www.supportline.org.uk/problems/parentsTalking.php
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1A. The preventive role of
individual parents (cont’d)
Parent
education and training:
Families and
Schools Together (F&ST) Program (Family Service Canada)
http://www.familyservicecanada.org/fst/index_e.html
Bringing together
two solitudes (Quebec,
Maison Jean Lapointe)
http://www.cplt.com/publications/btene.pdf
How to improve
family harmony (Quebec,
Maison Jean Lapointe)
http://www.cplt.com/publications/bhfe.pdf
Fact
sheets on alcohol and other substances:
AADAC’s Fact Sheets
(Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission)
http://parent.aadac.com/
Straight facts
about drugs and drug abuse [includes drug pictures] (Health Canada)
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/pubs/drugs-drogues/straight_facts-faits_mefaits/index_e.html
CCSA’s Fact Sheets
(Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse)
Oxycontin: http://www.ccsa.ca/NR/rdonlyres/0657A20F-6F24-4383-AEEC-AFD12D09D504/0/ccsa0036422006.pdf
Methamphetamine: http://www.ccsa.ca/NR/rdonlyres/A378E355-BB39-45FB-BDB8-FB751EDBAFFD/0/ccsa0111342005.pdf
Volatile solvents: http://www.ccsa.ca/NR/rdonlyres/B7B01B16-838F-437B-82C5-63760FE577EE/0/ccsa0113262006.pdf
Various
health topics (Canadian Health Network)
http://www.canadian-health-network.ca/
including:
The truth about
anabolic steroids
http://www.canadian-health-network.ca/servlet/ContentServer?cid=1069439888811&pagename=CHN-RCS%2FCHNResource%2FCHNResourcePageTemplate&c=CHNResource&repGroupTopic=Substance+Use+%2F+Addictions
Marijuana – is it
safe?
http://www.canadian-health-network.ca/servlet/ContentServer?cid=1052490786377&pagename=CHN-RCS/CHNResource/CHNResourcePageTemplate&c=CHNResource&lang=En&repGroupTopic=Substance+Use+%2F+Addictions
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder:
Teaching students
with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/specialneeds/fasd.asp
FAS Support Network
of BC
http://www.fetalalcohol.com/
FAS World
http://www.fasworld.com/
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1A. The preventive role of
individual parents (cont’d)
Canadian drug education films/videos
Support for families of youth with
substance use problems:
From Grief to
Action: improving the lives of drug users, their families and friends
http://www.fromgrieftoaction.org/
Youth in care of the government
Wards of the crown
(film by Andree Cazabon)
http://www.youthincare.ca/filmmaker/
Lives of drug-involved street people
Odd Squad
productions
http://www.oddsquad.com/index.php
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1B. The preventive role of parents
as volunteers
Research indicates that the most promising
way to prevent substance use problems among students is through a mix of
activities that reinforce and complement each other. An example of this type of
“comprehensive” approach is to combine effective school curriculum with efforts
to improve
the school’s climate and to deal effectively with problems
through a written school or board drug policy. These activities in turn may be supported
by giving youth opportunities to take on leadership responsibilities (through
for example, peer
helper or cross-age mentor
programs).
Important prevention can occur through simply providing alternative activities
for youth to engage in (sports,
crafts, games, outdoor adventure), sometimes called the “alternatives”
approach. Dry
grads that provide a non-drinking alternative to grad parties is in a
sense an example of an alternative activity.
In many cases, schools are strapped for
resources and have difficulty offering this kind of range of preventive
activities. Parents are in an excellent position to volunteer to lead or assist
with getting these kinds of activities started in their school. A couple of
principles to remember when considering these types of activities: make sure
the youth target group is involved from the outset in planning, and try to tie
your work into related efforts that may reinforce what you hope to do.
Featured
Resources:
Establishing peer
helper programs (Peer Resource Network)
http://www.peer.ca/peer.html
Establishing
mentoring programs (Peer Resource Network)
http://www.peer.ca/mentor.html
Mentoring
initiatives: an overview of youth mentoring (US
gov’t – CSAP) http://www.parentingisprevention.org/mentor.pdf
Organizing a dry
grad (Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission)
http://teacher.aadac.com/content/teacher/school_resources_grad_to_remember/grad_to_remember.pdf
Stop underage
drinking – parents section (US
gov’t)
http://www.stopalcoholabuse.gov/parents.aspx
Volunteer mentoring
(University
of Alberta)
http://www.mentorship.ualberta.ca/iindex.html
Creating a positive
school climate (Manitoba Education)
http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/ks4/specedu/fas/pdf/3.pdf
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1C. The preventive role of
parent leaders
Parent leaders might be defined as those who
are prepared to assume leadership over a period of time to initiate or
contribute to change. A common preventive role for a parent leader is as an
advocate for policy or organizational development. Great improvements in a
school or community usually results from an individual rallying others to work
toward change. Change often depends on a “champion” but that champion needs to
be able engage and work effectively with others in order to achieve the desired
change.
One powerful way of viewing this work is to
take an ecologically-oriented community approach as studied by Good and
colleagues (1997)i. This approach views the school as an open system
which is a part of the local context; the school boundaries are seen as
extending into the neighbourhood, and vice versa. From this perspective, within
the school boundaries are families of the school children, neighbours, local
businesses, churches, and other community resources. If a goal is to improve
the health of students through collective action, it is parents, students and
other citizens that will need to define the problem, and mobilize resources to
address it. From this perspective, mobilizing will mean bridge-building
activities between school and other citizens, achieving small wins over time,
and developing a long-range commitment to creating organizational structures
that connect the culture of the school and the interests of the neighbourhood.
When it comes to the prevention of youth
substance use problems, we know better than ever what works. Typically, various
research panels and government authorities call for prevention programs to be
based on…
… good
statistical information on the problem: organizations, programs and funding
bodies are encouraged to base their program aims on reliable information on the
nature and extent of problems, to fashion goals that are clear and realistic,
and to monitor and evaluate program processes and outcomes. ii
… protective/risk
factors and resiliency: At one time, prevention programs were designed as
if substance use problems arose because people didn’t know any better;
information dissemination was a dominant activity. While necessary, information
alone is often not sufficient to bring about behavioural change. Through
research spanning several decades, we are increasing our understanding of various
personal, family, community and societal factors that promote resiliency or
conversely contribute to substance use problems in various populations. iii
… comprehensiveness:
because of the range of factors that can contribute to substance use problems,
experts have commonly called for comprehensiveness, which most often means
bringing together the competence and resources of several partners, and tying
together various elements such as policies and programs to reinforce each other
(as with for example, comprehensive school health programs). iv
… strong
engagement of the target group: it is commonly understood that it is
critical to involve the target group in assessing need, designing and
implementing activities and in evaluating it, and through this experience bring
participants to an understanding that they are their own best resource for
dealing with their substance use problems. v vi
… a
larger strategy:. In many Western countries (e.g. Australia, UK, Canada) various
levels of government have developed strategies to guide, and create synergy
between the various actors. Within these strategies, demand reduction and
prevention usually plays a large role. For example, in Alberta, the
provincial Prevention Strategy is tied into the Alberta Drug Strategy, which in
turn is linked to the National Framework for Action to Reduce the Harms
Associated with Alcohol and other Drugs and Substances in Canada.
11
A long standing problem in the prevention
field is the phenomenon of “short termism”; in too many cases, prevention
activity is based on short term projects with no sustained funding.
Increasingly, programs are developed to be effective, but too few of them are
developed to last. Building long-term structures and resources to deal with
youth substance use and other health and social problems is a very important
need in virtually all our communities -- a need that would greatly benefit from
advocacy by parent leaders.
Featured
Resources
National provincial and municipal
drug strategies:
CCSA’s national strategies
site:
http://www.ccsa.ca/CCSA/Templates/Generic.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRORIGINALURL=%2fCCSA%2fEN%2fPartnerships%2fHEP%2fStrategies%2ehtm&NRNODEGUID=%7bD79F5882-1944-44BB-A75B-B102569EF647%7d&NRCACHEHINT=Guest#NS
Toolkits to mobilize parents and
communities
Communities that
care (US SAMHSA)
http://ncadi.samhsa.gov/features/ctc/resources.aspx
Taking the message
home: involving parents in drugs prevention (UKgov’t)
http://www.drugs.gov.uk/publication-search/dpas/DPASPaper5.pdf?view=Binary
Parents helping
parents (US
gov’t – SAMHSA)
http://www.parentingisprevention.org/pipp_booklet/index.html
The community tool
box (US – University
of Kansas)
http://ctb.ku.edu/index.jsp
40 developmental
assets (US – The Search Institute)
http://ctb.ku.edu/index.jsp
Research on families and
youth substance use / Best practices in preventing youth substance use problems
Preventing
substance use problems among youth – a compendium of best practices, Health Canada
(2001).
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/pubs/drugs-drogues/prevent/index_e.html.
Preventing drug
abuse among children and adolescents, 2nd Edition 2003 (US – NIDA)
http://www.drugabuse.gov/prevention/prevopen.html
Strategies to
prevent underage drinking, 2003. (US – NIAAA)
http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh26-1/5-14.htm
Principles for
school drug education (AU gov’t) http://www.redi.gov.au/ReadingRoom/Files/Principles_Text%20_Final%2005_07_04.pdf
Parenting
influences on adolescent alcohol use (AU gov’t)
http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/resreport10/main.html
The role of
families in the development, identification, prevention, and treatment of
illicit drug problems (AU – NHMRC)