SOCW 6103 - Week 10 - Discussion: Prevention Program

Discussion: Prevention Program

As an addiction professional, you may contribute to social change in a variety of ways. For example, you may educate clients and families, engage in local community and political agendas to help those in need, and connect with other professionals in the field across the city, state, or nation. In addition, you might work to limit social agendas that may potentially hurt clients, families, and communities at large.

Individuals, groups, governments, school systems and communities aim to advocate for people in need through the use of social programs. For example, the Drug Abuse Awareness and Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program designed by Nancy Reagan in the 1980s was a social program with the goal of keeping kids away from alcohol and drugs. This program was used in nearly 80% of school districts in the United States where police officers were tasked with educating school-aged children about the dangers of using alcohol and drugs. Unfortunately, despite the best of intentions, some social change programs are ineffective and fail to accomplish what they set out to do. D.A.R.E. has reportedly been ineffective and was sometimes shown to be counterproductive (Hanson, n. d.). 

For this Discussion, review this week's resources and select one of the social change programs identified below. Consider the challenges facing social change programs and think about factors that may contribute to the success of these programs in today's society.

You’ll utilize and reference the War on Drugs social change program and complete research on the topic for Discussion:

Provide a 400-word Discussion Post providing:

- A description of the War on Drugs prevention program

- Explain why it was not successful in preventing addiction. 

- Then based on this information, what two recommendations would you make for this program to be successful in reducing addiction today

- Finally, describe two challenges to those recommendations. 

- Support your response using the resources and the current literature. Must contain at least 4 references and citation.

- Must be original work

Use the following to locate your References and Citations:

Required Readings

A Brief History of the Drug War. https://www.drugpolicy.org/issues/brief-history-drug-war

Capuzzi, D., & Stauffer, M. D. (2016). Foundations of addictions counseling (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Education, Inc.

Goodin, M. J. (2018). We cannot treat the dead. American Journal of Public Health, 2018(10), 1286-1288.

Kelly, J. F., Stout, R. L., Magill, M., Tonigan, J. S., & Pagano, M. E. (2010). Mechanisms of behavior change in alcoholics anonymous: Does Alcoholics Anonymous lead to better alcohol use outcomes by reducing depression symptoms? Addiction, 105(4), 626–636. 

NIDA for Teens: The Science Behind Drug Abuse. (n.d.). Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://teens.drugabuse.gov/

Pagano, M. E., Post, S. G., & Johnson, S. M. (2011). Alcoholics Anonymous-related helping and the helper therapy principle. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 29(1), 21–23. 

The Partnership at Drugfree.org. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.drugfree.org

Patry, E., Bratberg, J. P., Buchanan, A., Paiva, A. L., Balestrieri, S., & Matson, K. L. (2018). Rx for addiction and medication safety: An evaluation of teen education for opioid misuse prevention. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy. doi:10.1016/j.sapharm.2018.07.006

Pitt, A. L., Humphreys, K., & Brandeau, M. L. (2018). Modeling health benefits and harms of public policy responses to the US opioid epidemic. American Journal of Public Health, 108(10), 1394-1400.