Survey Says...

We have a winner!  Actually, we have 27 winners in our State of the Program survey contest. Congratulations!  And thanks to over 1,000 of our community partners that provided us with invaluable feedback about how they’re using Project ALERT in their schools and community settings.  We couldn’t deliver one of the top-rated substance use prevention education programs in the country without you!  Thank you!

Noticias del Proyecto ALERTA

Project ALERT is very excited to announce the release of our updated Spanish manual!  Current information on e-cigarettes and marijuana has been added to our “Proyecto ALERTA” curriculum, along with updated prevalence of use data from Monitoring the Future.  Please see our website for all of our materials available en Español.

Year in Review

If you’ve been wondering just exactly what we’ve been doing all year, please check out Project ALERT director Eric Pedersen’s Reflections on Another Successful Year of Project ALERT column. Also check out an updated review of Project ALERT research studies that we have posted on our website.

 

Spring Gives Way to Summer

 

Like so many literary masters, the staff at the Educator are big fans of summer, and our ritual of including a few seasonal classic musings in our end-of-school-year issue continues.  This time around, like those early summer days--the kind that stretch out like limitless acres of powdered sand on a cloudless California beach, or like blonde featherfields of bristly wheat chasing the elusive orange-gray of a dusty mid-Western horizon, or (ok…we’ll stop…Yancey said it so much better)--some of our favorite quotes about the season are a bit longer than you might be used to.  We hope these few gems inspire you to enjoy some well-earned days of rest and relaxation or hasten you to “get outta Dodge” for some long-awaited adventures!

 

"Spring flew swiftly by, and summer came; and if the village had been beautiful at first, it was now in the full glow and luxuriance of its richness. The great trees, which had looked shrunken and bare in the earlier months, had now burst into strong life and health; and stretching forth their green arms over the thirsty ground, converted open and naked spots into choice nooks, where was a deep and pleasant shade from which to look upon the wide prospect, steeped in sunshine, which lay stretched out beyond. The earth had donned her mantle of brightest green; and shed her richest perfumes abroad. It was the prime and vigour of the year; all things were glad and flourishing."

—Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

 

"As spring gave way to summer, the bright green stalks darkened, became tan, turned golden brown. The days grew long and hot. Thick towers of swirling black clouds brought rain, and the brown stems glistened in the perpetual twilight that dwelled beneath the canopy. The wheat rose and the ripening heads bent in the prairie wind, a rippling curtain, an endless, undulating sea that stretched to the horizon."

―Rick Yancey, The Infinite Sea

 

"The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color."

―Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

 

Here’s to a restful and adventurous summer!

 

Congratulations to all 27 winners of the Project ALERT State of the Program survey contest! In addition to these 15 lucky gift card winners, 12 other individuals won a Project ALERT poster for their school or organization.

Five grand prizes—a $500 Amazon gift card awarded to their school or organization—went to:

 

• Principal Joyanne Hamilton, Innoko River School, AK
• Dr. Nanci Hanover, Kennedy High School, Granada Hills, CA
• Reginald Johnson, E. B. Aycock Middle School, Greenville, NC
• Nicole Raphael, Hillside Middle School, Simi Valley, CA
• Lori Watson, RN, Browning Springs Middle School, Madisonville, KY

• Michele Allocca, Middle Village Prep Charter School, Middle Village, NY
• Leslie Beasley, a community organization in Pulaski, VA
• Stephanie Bisordi, Mark West Charter School, Santa Rosa, CA
• Laurie Blue, Crossroads Charter Academy, Hanford, CA
• John Cameron, Hudson Mohawk Young Marines, Colonie, NY
• Stacey Gauthier, The Renaissance Charter School, Queens, NY
• Stacy Henderson, Mecklenburg County Young Marines, Charlotte, NC
• Jessie Lanham, Waterford School, Waterford, VT
• Bao Nguyen, Magnolia Science Academy, Santa Ana, CA
• Adam Olig, Plainview-Elgin-Millville High School, Plainview, MN

 

We received over 1,000 responses in our survey, and we appreciate the invaluable feedback on Project ALERT from all of our community partners. Thank you!

 

Dear Project ALERT community,

As the 2016-2017 school year comes to a close, we wanted to take the opportunity to thank our community for your support of our program and to share some of our past-year accomplishments.

We published our updated supplement and several newsletter articles addressing the growing issue of adolescent opioid use

With increased usage and recent passing of recreational use laws in several states, we published our marijuana supplement last year. Due to highly publicized media reports about a “heroin epidemic” among adolescents and teenagers in the United States, we dedicated efforts this year to provide educators and their students with resources, articles, and fact sheets about heroin and opioids. We featured four articles on opiates (including prescription painkillers) in our newsletter and created the supplemental guide, Heroin and Other Opioids: Information and Facts for Educators and Youth.

Based on feedback from our users that opioids are becoming an increasing concern in their communities, we are also now pilot testing a supplemental lesson targeting opioid use. Findings from that pilot test will be shared with our community in the next few months.

We published our updated supplement, Club and Other Drugs, to provide a resource for teachers and students on risky drugs associated with party scenes

Negative effects of party drugs, such as ecstasy, methamphetamine, DXM, LSD, stimulants, sedatives, and steroids, are widely recognized among educators and practitioners. It’s been established that these drugs can be very detrimental to youth, with use often doubling and tripling from 8^th grade to 12^th grade. Though Project ALERT content is focused on the drugs used most commonly by youth, the resistance skills taught in the program translate to prevention of all substances. To address other drugs beyond the targets of alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes/e-cigarettes, and opioids, we updated our supplemental guide, “Club and Other Drugs: Information and Facts for Educators and Youth” to provide a helpful resource for Project ALERT teachers and students for addressing these drugs within Project ALERT lessons.

We conducted a thorough review of our manual and website and made numerous content edits and navigation enhancements

We published an update of the lesson plans for all 14 Project ALERT sessions (the 11 core and the 3 booster lessons). Relying on sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, and Monitoring the Future, the full instructional manual now contains the most up-to-date e-cigarette and marijuana information available. We also made the manual accessible as a single PDF for easier download from our website. Additionally, all supplemental Power Point slides used for implementing each lesson as well as student take-home handouts have been updated with current facts and information and a more current feel.

The website received a major overhaul as well, with a new FAQ page, a Getting Started overview page for new users, updated and accurate resources and links, and a more intuitive format to help users more easily locate videos and supplemental guides.

We reviewed and revised our Spanish manual, updating our Proyecto ALERTA program with the most current information available on e-cigarettes and marijuana

Our Spanish manual now includes the latest information on e-cigarettes and marijuana, including the most current facts and data on recreational marijuana legalization, as well as updated prevalence of use data available from Monitoring the Future. We have also made updates to the graphic layout to be more in line with the English versions. Our first Spanish supplement on marijuana is scheduled for release this fall.

We conducted a large-scale survey effort to better understand the extensiveness and reach of Project ALERT as well as the needs of our community partners

To meet the diverse and increasing needs of our user base, we evaluated the current state of Project ALERT to better understand the extensiveness and reach of the program. During the winter and spring of 2017, we conducted a large-scale survey effort, collecting data from over 1,000 respondents about how Project ALERT is being implemented in their community settings. Results from these findings are being compiled for presentation in a future newsletter.

We've continued to watch Project ALERT grow both nationally and globally

A review of our user base indicates that we have over 35,000 unique adult educators that have been certified to teach Project ALERT. We have certificated adult educators in all 50 states in nearly 3,400 middle schools throughout the United States. We continue to grow our user base at a rapid rate; in 2016 alone we added over 1,300 new certified users.  Both interest and implementation of Project ALERT are growing internationally, with new community partners based in Chile.

As always, we are available to consult and answer any questions you may have

We continue to be available for any assistance you may need by phone at 1-800-ALERT-10 and by email. Please visit our website and Facebook page for ongoing, updated information, and interesting new topics. We also offer in-person training for a fee if your school is interested.

Thank you again for your continued support of Project ALERT. We are honored to be one of the top publicly available drug prevention education programs in the United States. We look forward to continuing to work with our community partners in the effort to prevent drug use among our youth.

 

Sincerely,

Eric Pedersen

Director, Project ALERT

Behavioral Scientist

RAND Corporation

 

 

The Educator is excited to announce that our Spanish manual has been updated.  Throughout all the individual lessons, you’ll find new information on e-cigarettes and marijuana, as well as the most current prevalence of use data available from Monitoring the Future.  We’ve also given the lessons a new look, with a layout that is more consistent with our English versions.  We think you’ll like these updates a lot, and you can be confident that you’re giving your students the most up-to-date information on a variety of topics related to substance use prevention.

 

The Educator would also like to acknowledge the efforts of program staff Marylou Gilbert and Diana Naranjo for their excellent work in updating these translations and adding a lot of new and vital material to the curriculum. See our Proyecto ALERTA web page for more information.

 

If you’re using the Proyecto ALERTA curriculum in your teaching setting, we would love to hear your feedback.  Send an email to projectalert@rand.org and let us know how it’s going or how we can help.

In December 2016, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices (NREPP) recognized Project ALERT as having a “promising evidence rating” for alcohol use and disorders, cannabis use and disorders, tobacco use and disorders, and knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about substance use.

 

What exactly does it mean for a drug prevention program to have a promising evidence rating? And does it matter?

The short answers are: 1) it means the program is backed by evidence, and 2) yes, it matters very much. When a program has research evidence to support that it works, it means that the schools and organizations looking to use the program to curb drug use among their youth can be confident that the program is likely to work towards its intended purpose. When a program has been tested in studies known as randomized controlled trials (or “RCTs”) it means the program has undergone an evaluation that has been defined as the gold standard test for effectiveness. Though some estimates suggest that there are over 2,000 drug prevention programs available for youth, Project ALERT stands with a select number of programs that have an evidence base of rigorous RCTs on which to make its effectiveness claims.

 

How does Project ALERT continue to stay relevant and effective today?

RAND is committed to continued evaluation of Project ALERT and providing our community with understandable and accurate descriptions of the Project ALERT research trials. As such, we invite you to explore our updated report of the five Project ALERT RCTs in a document titled, A Summary of Project ALERT Outcome Studies on our website. A careful review of this document, coupled with reading the specific articles detailing the scientific findings from the validation studies, is an important precursor in deciding whether to use Project ALERT.

 

No matter which drug prevention education curriculum your school or organization decides to adopt, we encourage school administrators, teachers, organization leadership, policy makers, and parents to review its evidence base prior to program use. Individuals from these groups are invited to send any questions or comments our way or to contact us to hear more about our future research and evaluation efforts.