Exercise One – Due
2/18/11
Complete the following:
1) Explore in depth a minimum of three web sites that provide
information on substance abuse prevention programming. Write a paper,
including brief descriptions of the sites you visited, a summary of the
information provided at each site, a detailed description of specific
information that you found particularly interesting and/or useful and
why you found it to be so, and your opinion regarding each site’s
usefulness to someone seeking to develop a comprehensive prevention
program for their school or community.
2) Interview one or more local professionals who work with individuals
with chemical abuse and/or addiction problems. These might include
treatment professionals, law enforcement personnel, probation officers,
social workers, and/or school counselors. Write a paper reporting on
your findings, including the roles of the professionals you interviewed,
the drugs of abuse they typically encounter, the alcohol/drug-related
problems they typically see (personal, family, societal) in their work,
and any programs they believe are having or might have a positive impact
on preventing and reducing these problems.
Each paper should be a minimum of three pages in length, typed,
double-spaced, with one-inch margins and 12-pitch font. No references
are required other than identifying and acknowledging the professionals
you interview. You may save your papers as word (doc) or rich text
format (rtf) documents and send them to me attached to an e-mail, or you
may copy and paste your papers into an e-mail and send them to me.
Exercise Three, due towards the end of the semester, will involve
attending local prevention coalition meetings and reporting on your
findings. So find out if there is an active coalition in your area and
when and where the meetings are held. Begin attending meetings to learn
about the make-up of the group, the group’s process, and the activities
and projects they are working on. Here is the actual assignment so that
you may begin working on it:
“Attend a minimum of two meetings of a local Prevention
Coalition (or Alliance or Task Force). Better yet, become involved.
Write a 3-page paper reporting on your findings and describing the
meetings and your reactions to them. Describe in some detail the extent
of the problems the group is dealing with and the strategies they are
implementing to address these problems. What local school and/or
community constituencies are represented? What positive outcomes are
they anticipating from their efforts, and how are they measuring them?
In your opinion, is the Coalition being effective? Why or why not?
What would you do to improve it?”
