School-Wide Prevention Strategies 

Holistic drug prevention efforts that enhance school climate and culture, promote trauma-informed environments, student-adult relationships, student-centered learning, and student voice not only reduce on-campus drug use and behavioral challenges but ultimately, prepare students for success in life. 

Positive School Climate

• In the research on school effectiveness and success, “school culture” has been found to be the most important factor in a school’s ability to facilitate student achievement (Purkey and Smith, 1983). Even more so than school personal and resources, a positive school climate has been associated with higher academic achievement and healthy behavioral outcomes for students (Voight, A. 2013). 

School Connectedness

• Reduces the likelihood that students will use substances at school by implementing strength-building programs and activities (i.e., social problem solving; coping skills) like those outlined in the following What Works Briefs: Caring Relationships & High Expectations (#1); Opportunities for Meaningful Participation (#2); and School Connectedness (#4). 

 Teacher-Student Connectedness
 

Youth Voice & Agency  

 Student-Centered Learning

•  Student-centered learning can increase student accountability in the creation of successful and engaging classrooms. Teachers encourage student-centered learning by allowing students to share in decisions, believing in their capacity to lead, and remembering how it feels to learn. 

Developing Agency With Student-Led Conferences

• When students lead meetings with their parents and teachers, they gain a voice in their education and develop skills like goal-setting and metacognition.

Trauma and Resilience 

Transitioning to trauma-informed practices

• A trauma-informed approach to teaching ensures that students feel safe, supported, and nurtured—to improve their chances of academic success. 

Strategies for Trauma-Informed Distance Learning

• Strategies to help educators use trauma-informed teaching practices in distance learning contexts. The strategies are organized using neuroscientist Bruce Perry’s “3 Rs” approach to intervention: Regulate, Relate, and Reason.

Creating Trauma-Informed Learning Environments

• Offers five important actions teachers can take to design trauma-sensitive learning environments.

Positive Relationships 

The power of relationships in school

• Adult-student relationships in schools are a powerful predictor of a host of important youth development outcomes, including students’ satisfaction with, and connection to, school; academic performance; quality of peer relationships; and experience of personal well–being. Research shows that students who feel safe and supported by adults at school are better able to learn

 Foster student strengths and opportunities for success 

• Strengths-based practices are based on the belief that all children have strengths and past successes that can be utilized to stop troublesome behavior. Strengths-based practices offer practical methods that identify and marshal these strengths for necessary behavior change. 

• Every behavior sends a message. Adults who understand negative behaviors through a strengths-based can identify the protective mechanism it offers to a student struggling with a negative self-concept. Adults can support students to believe in themselves and feel hopeful about their futures by reframing negative behaviors, praising the good, introducing strengths-assessments, and career matching in classroom activities. 

  • Strengths Test Links

  • Richardstep Strengths Finder

  • VIA Character Strengths Survey

  • How Am I Smart Survey? (what intelligences do I have?)

  • Daring to Lead (what are my leadership strengths?)

• Create and/or modify tasks and activities to maximize success opportunities to help youth enhance self-esteem. 

• A video where Charlie Applestein, a pioneer in the strengths-based youth development field, demonstrates using Strengths-Based approaches in the classroom to address less than socially acceptable behaviors and get students with behavioral challenges back on track. 

 Building Rapport

Making Connections by Greeting at the Door

• In a study published last year, greeting students at the door helped teachers set a positive tone for the rest of the day, boosting academic engagement by 20 percentage points while reducing disruptive behavior by 9 percentage points—adding roughly an hour of engagement over the course of the school day

 Social Justice

Microaggressions in the Classroom