FCD's Approach to Prevention

Within a school community, prevention is a collaborative process—involving faculty, administrators, health care staff, parents, students, and trustees—that promotes the health and welfare of young people by planning and implementing strategies that:

Reduce risk factors that contribute to unhealthy behaviors
Identify and intervene on unhealthy behaviors
Nurture and strengthen protective factors that contribute to health and well being.

Effective prevention is more than a drug education course, an assembly, a list of facts, a set of rules, a counselor, or a parent meeting. These may be critical elements of prevention, but a comprehensive prevention plan is the overall blueprint for maintaining a healthy school community. In essence, it is the school's climate—the sum total of values, attitudes, priorities, rules, relationships, and activities that characterize that community.

Thus, virtually every decision, program, or policy within the school has a bearing on prevention because any of these may, directly or indirectly, affect risk and/or protective factors such as:

Student stress levels
Parent involvement
Opportunities for positive bonding and ritual
Tolerance and acceptance
Knowledge and awareness of drug-related issues
Teaching methods
Intervention attitudes and practices
Sense of belonging
Trust within the community
Opportunities for achievement
Availability of mentors and counselors.

Effective prevention must reflect each school's values and mission. It must be woven into the very fabric of school life. The setting of priorities and policies surrounding alcohol and other drug use requires parents, teachers, administrators, and students to examine their attitudes, expectations, and behaviors; the nature of faculty, student, parent, and administrative roles and relationships; existing school policies, rules, and helping structures; internal and external threats to the health of the community; and the goals the school envisions for its prevention plan. Thus, a commitment to prevention is a commitment to introspection. Only then can meaningful and effective strategies be created.