Addiction prevention program
The effectiveness of prevention programs has been proven and appreciated by families and the society at large especially when it comes to rehabilitating the youths from the bondage of drug addiction. Adults are the most affected by drug addiction but these results from the initial steps taken by a youth during his or her school life (Hanson, Venturelli & Fleckenstein, 2015). In this regard, intervening early before high school is critical because the high school students is the population that is steeply inclined towards the risk of drug addiction more than any other group in the current generation (Hanson, Venturelli & Fleckenstein, 2015).
Bearing in mind that youths in general are the main target which drug addiction aims at, this prevention program will therefore articulate all the social, biological and psychological consequences of drug addiction to the students at high school (Chang et al, 2015). Parents, educators and the community leaders have got a giant task o handle because their influence is a determinant factor towards the effectiveness of the prevention program from addiction against drugs for the high school students. In addition, a recent research has confirmed that parents who talk to their children about the issues of drug addiction on regular basis have children who at a lower risk of falling into the addiction. This prevention program will act as an aid for parents who are determined to build a strong foundation for their children (Chang et al, 2015).
It is surprising that children often start by experimenting of a variety of activities and substances. Among the mostly experimented drugs include tobacco, cocaine and other club drugs which soon becomes an addition. It is important to note that teens are unconsciously getting into smoking bang and using marijuana while at school away from their parents. Having identified the actual drugs most teenagers get to it would be easier to analyze the possible impacts that result from the drugs (Rogers, Sebastian, Cotton, Pippin & Merandi, 2016).
The actual impacts are gradually signaled by the change of behavior for the teen drug abuse. Signs such as moody swings, violent behavior loss of interests for the activities that the child is favorite in and poor hygiene are just a sample of the long list of signs of a teen under drug abuse. The effects are actually felt when the student is totally addicted and develops a full dependence such that nothing can operate normally before getting a dose of the drug (Rogers, Sebastian, Cotton, Pippin & Merandi, 2016). Drug abuse through injection attracts the risks of getting blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis B and C among other diseases (Rogers, Sebastian, Cotton, Pippin & Merandi, 2016). More contritely, brain damage is another potential impact which results from drug addiction. Serious mental disorders and the damaging of the central nervous system could affect the learning abilities of the student, impaired reasoning and the change of sexual desires. The end results would be a crushed generation full of poverty and illiteracy and people who are less or not productive to the society.
The society is in the hands of the interest groups which have come up strongly to create more awareness to the youths against drug addiction. Even though much more is yet to be achieved, UNODC has recently marked 26 June of every year as an international day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking which would has indeed come to the rescue of the young generation. The programs aims at supporting the prevention programs such as this based on establishing the well being of the families, the youth and the community at large. The National Executive Committee of the African National Congress Youth League has intensified the campaigns against drug abuse with a concrete message of decisive interventions and similar programs. Generation Rx Project is another project that campaigns against the misuse of prescribed drugs and much more campaigns have been run with an aim of saving the youths from the tragedy of drug addiction (Ayumi, Yuki, Norito, Toshihiko, Tomohiro & Takashi, 2016). In addition school programs are hastened to deliver the intervention strategies and addressing the core factors that affect additions for their students. Among the awareness topics covered in high schools include self control, peer pressure and the academic support in trying to eradicate the perceptions of students that drugs are the solution to their problems (Ayumi, Yuki, Norito, Toshihiko, Tomohiro & Takashi, 2016).
With a full knowledge of the prevention program and what it focuses on for the high school student intervention, the best time to carry out the program is during the days that rhyme with the international campaigns against drug addiction. This would best facilitate the emphasis on awareness and present the concrete and substantial reasons of why all students ought to abstain from drugs (Elton, Smitherman, Young & Kilts, 2015). The prevention program aims shall aim at large crowds as well as individual levels. In order to access as many students as possible, the implementation of this program will be based majorly in schools with the help of the schools’ management. The program will also target churches and community centers during holidays through the organization and support of the community and religious leaders (Elton, Smitherman, Young & Kilts, 2015). Personal or individual interventional would only be done to special cases in their homes, with the contributions from parents and guardians. The program will extend its interventions to the addicted students to convince and show the necessity of getting into rehabilitation programs for the purpose of long-term outcome. In this regard, quantity and quality interventions strategies shall be scheduled to ensure schools and homes are well saturated with the awareness of drug abuse and prevention (Elton, Smitherman, Young & Kilts, 2015).
Since socialization is the most powerful tool for social change, the social media will therefore be our stronghold in reaching the students. High school students like exploring using FaceBook accounts Twitter, and Instagram among the numerous social sites. The prevention program will utilize the already existing websites so as to reach the online users in high schools (Elton, Smitherman, Young & Kilts, 2015). For the purpose of keeping the program on toes, it will incorporate publishing pamphlets and small handouts that contain prevention message of drug abuse. As much as support from the social media and other directional bodies are assured, government support will be the cornerstone of our funding. In connection to this knot, the program will work with the current bodies to fund the projects, campaigns and publishing and interventions. To evaluate the success of the programs the prevention program will majorly rely on statistical data collected during the pre and post intervention implementation. Testimonies and experiences from the teachers, parents and the members of the school committees will be gathered using questionnaires which are believed to work best for this kind of an assessment. Data concerning the number of students who have rehabilitated and the general response of the students shall be analyzed (Elton, Smitherman, Young & Kilts, 2015).
References
Hanson, G., Venturelli, P. J., & Fleckenstein, A. E. (2015). Drugs and society.
Chang, F., Chang, Y., Lee, C., Lung, C., Liao, H., Lee, S., & ... Zeng, W. (2015). Effects of a school-based drug use prevention programme for middle-school students in Taiwan. Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy, 22(1), 43-51. doi:10.3109/09687637.2014.952271
Rogers, J., Sebastian, S., Cotton, W., Pippin, C., & Merandi, J. (2016). Reduction of immunization errors through practitioner education and addition of age-specific alerts in the electronic prescribing system. American Journal Of Health-System Pharmacy, 73(11), S74-S79. doi:10.2146/ajhp150311
Ayumi, T., Yuki, M., Norito, K., Toshihiko, M., Tomohiro, S., & Takashi, S. (2016). Web-based cognitive behavioral relapse prevention program with tailored feedback for people with methamphetamine and other drug use problems: protocol for a multicenter randomized controlled trial in Japan. BMC Psychiatry, 161-12. doi:10.1186/s12888-016-0793-x
Elton, A., Smitherman, S., Young, J., & Kilts, C. D. (2015). Effects of childhood maltreatment on the neural correlates of stress- and drug cue-induced cocaine craving. Addiction Biology, 20(4), 820-831. doi:10.1111/adb.12162
