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| News & information of interest to the youth-service community |
and Early Intervention *Digested from a report by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
“The peer-support retreat approach circumvents these shortcomings. The retreat occurs outside of school at a site chosen for its open and relaxing atmosphere. Removing students from their accustomed environments and placing them in an unfamiliar setting provides them with the opportunity to reflect on, and talk about, their needs and problems and encourages them to do so. “It is characteristic of adolescents both to resist adult involvement in general in their lives and to deny specifically that their use of alcohol and other drug (AOD) use is a problem. Research findings lead to the conclusion that a prevention/early intervention program must effectively include the participation of peers and involve them in any solution. They also suggest utilizing a “group” setting to address the needs of youth that are related to prevention and early intervention. “Peer support retreats offer such an approach to AOD problems. Peer support retreats have the advantage of being able to focus special attention on young people before they are burdened with the resistance and dependency that are caused by long-term AOD use. Early adolescents may have just begun to experiment with AODs or have friendships with AOD users, and young people who exhibit this behavior may also be undergoing stressful situational crises involving family members.
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“The retreat approach to learning is not new. Prevention and early intervention utilizing the retreat approach enhances the problem-solving, decision-making and assertiveness skills of adolescents so that they are better able to handle constructively the extra pressure of their particular situations. It has been used successfully to improve youth leadership skills, to train youth to work as peer counselors and to train community volunteers to work with youth. The strength of this approach is the high level of interaction and involvement during a very concentrated period of time (NIDA 1985). “Retreat activities include workshops and other activities focusing on interpersonal and intrapersonal communication skills, problem-solving, decision-making, refusal skills and AOD information. The activities are conducted interactively through discussion, role-playing and other hands-on activities. Youth are encouraged to question and to share their thoughts and feelings. Listening to adults and peers discuss problems similar to their own can help students put their own problems into perspective. Other games and activities that provide metaphors to real life to which youth can relate, and which help them explore issues that are important to prevention and early intervention, are also utilized during the retreats.” Camp Deer Run has been conducting youth retreats that are based on the model discussed in this research for over ten years. Please contact us to find out how we can help the youth served by your organization address effectively the issues in their own lives that are critical to youth development, including prevention and early intervention. For further information, call our Executive Director, Giro De Roover at (845) 733-5494, or e-mail him at giro.deroover@dianova.org.
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“Past research has shown that multiple activities within a condensed period of time are more effective than single weekly doses of prevention or early intervention (NIDA 1985). Typically these single weekly programs are offered in a school setting, which poses two problems. First, students may reject the information or fail to see its importance in their own lives because it is presented in a setting that may already be negative for them. Second, squeezing prevention and intervention activities into a busy school day minimizes the amount of intensive training received by the youth.
