Winning Life Choices For Intelligent Adolescents and Their Parents

Our world has been witnessing an escalation in drug use among adolescents in high school. How can a psycho-educational programme, using a selected audio-visual media resource (ATI Campaign) assist teachers and parents in an effort to prevent adolescent students' substance abuse problem behaviour? Social cognitive theory (SCT) and self-efficacy theory (SET) were used as a conceptual framework in relation to a study of adolescent substance abuse as well as to address this problem. A perusal of numerous audio-visual resources for their possible incorporation into prevention programmes were considered. The programme was put into action during seven sessions over a period of about two months, and implemented with a group of 26 Grade 10 and Grade 11 students in South Africa, to evaluate its relevance for adolescent substance abuse prevention. The findings indicated that the psycho-educational programme can be used very effectively by teachers to raise students' awareness and develop particular skills that could contribute towards the prevention of adolescent substance abuse. It is recommended that the programme should be used in the long-term with repeated reinforcing sessions over time.