Life Skills Training - Evidence Based Programs and Policy Research Social Programs That Work

Evidence Rating:

Top Tier

Highlights

Program:

Middle-school substance abuse prevention program.
Evaluation Methods:

Two well-conducted randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
Key Findings:

Reductions of approximately 10-30% in rates of smoking, drunkenness, and marijuana use at 12^th grade follow-up (i.e., 5-6 years after random assignment).
Other:

Strong evidence of effectiveness applies to rural or suburban public schools with a mostly white population. Evidence for urban, minority schools is promising but limited by lack of long-term follow-up. Program is low-cost.

LifeSkills Training is a middle school substance abuse prevention program that: (i) teaches students social and self-management skills, including skills in resisting peer and media pressure to smoke, drink, or use drugs; and (ii) informs students of the immediate consequences of substance abuse.

The program is delivered by regular classroom teachers who have received brief training from the LifeSkills Training organization. The teachers provide the program to students in 15 classroom sessions, each approximately 40-45 minutes in length, during students’ first year of middle school (either 6th or 7th grade). Over the next two years, the teachers provide students with a total of 5-15 review sessions to reinforce what they have learned.

In the classroom sessions, the teachers first explain a variety of life skills (e.g. giving assertive responses in a social interaction) and demonstrate how to use it. Students then practice using these skills in role plays during class, and in behavioral homework assignments outside of school.

Curriculum materials cost approximately $8 per student per year, and the teacher training workshops cost approximately $250 per teacher (2017 dollars).

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Top Tier

Programs shown in well-conducted RCTs, carried out in typical community settings, to produce sizable, sustained effects on important outcomes. Top Tier evidence includes a requirement for replication – specifically, the demonstration of such effects in two or more RCTs conducted in different implementation sites, or, alternatively, in one large multi-site RCT. Such evidence provides confidence that the program would produce important effects if implemented faithfully in settings and populations similar to those in the original studies.

Near Top Tier

Programs shown to meet almost all elements of the Top Tier standard, and which only need one additional step to qualify. This category primarily includes programs that meet all elements of the Top Tier standard in a single study site, but need a replication RCT to confirm the initial findings and establish that they generalize to other sites. This is best viewed as tentative evidence that the program would produce important effects if implemented faithfully in settings and populations similar to those in the original study.

Suggestive Tier

Programs that have been evaluated in one or more well-conducted RCTs (or studies that closely approximate random assignment) and found to produce sizable positive effects, but whose evidence is limited by only short-term follow-up, effects that fall short of statistical significance, or other factors. Such evidence suggests the program may be an especially strong candidate for further research, but does not yet provide confidence that the program would produce important effects if implemented in new settings.

References

Study 1 – Rural Iowa:

Spoth, Richard, G. Kevin Randall, Linda Trudeau, Chungyeol Shin, and Cleve Redmond. “Substance use outcomes 5 1/2 years past baseline for partnership-based, family-school preventive interventions.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2008, 57-68.

Spoth, Richard, Linda Trudeau, and Chungyeol Shin. “Long-term effects of universal preventive interventions on prescription drug misuse.” Addiction, 2008, vol. 103, no. 7, pp. 1160-1168.

Spoth, Richard L., Scott Clair, Chungyeol Shin, and Cleve Redmond. “Long-term Effects of Universal Preventative Interventions on Methamphetamine Use Among Adolescents.” Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, 2006, vol. 160, pp.876-882.

Trudeau, Linda, Richard Spoth, Catherine Lillehoj, Cleve Redmond, and K.A.S. Wickrama, “Effects of a Preventive Intervention on Adolescent Substance Use Initiation, Expectancies, and Refusal Intentions.” Prevention Science, vol. 4, no. 2, June 2003, pp. 109-122.

Spoth, Richard, Cleve Redmond, Linda Trudeau, and Chungyeol Shin, “Longitudinal Substance Initiation Outcomes for a Universal Preventive Intervention Combining Family and School Programs,” Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, vol. 16, no. 2, 2002, pp. 129-134.

Study 2 – New York State:

Griffin, Kenneth W., Gilbert J. Botvin, and Tracy R. Nichols. “Effects of a school-based drug abuse prevention program for adolescents on HIV risk behaviors in young adulthood.” Prevention Science, 2006, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 103-112.

Griffin, Kenneth W., Gilbert J. Botvin, and Tracy R. Nichols. “Long-term follow-up effects of a school-based drug abuse prevention program on adolescent risky driving.” Prevention Science, 2004, vol. 5, pp. 207-212.

Botvin Gilbert J., Kenneth W. Griffin, Tracy Diaz, Lawrence M. Scheier, Christopher Williams, and Jennifer A. Epstein. “Preventing illicit drug use in adolescents: Long-term follow-up data from a randomized control trial of a school population.” Addictive Behaviors, 2000, vol. 25, pp. 769-774.

Botvin, Gilbert J., Sharon Mihalic, and Jennifer Grotpeter (1998). Blueprints for Violence Prevention, Book Five: LifeSkills Training. Boulder, CO: Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. http://www.colorado.edu/cspv/blueprints/modelprograms/LST.html

Botvin, Gilbert J., Eli Baker, Linda Dusenbury, Elizabeth M. Botvin and Tracy Diaz. “Long-term Follow-up Results of a Randomized Drug Abuse Prevention Trial in a White Middle-class Population.” JAMA, vol. 273, no. 1, April 12, 1995, pp. 1106-1112.

Botvin, Gilbert J., Eli Baker, Linda Dusenbury, Stephanie Tortu, and Elizabeth M. Botvin. “Preventing Adolescent Drug Abuse Through a Multimodal Cognitive-Behavioral Approach: Results of a 3-Year Study.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, vol. 58, no. 4, 1990, pp. 437-446.

LifeSkills Training

Highlights

Program:

Evaluation Methods:

Key Findings:

Other:

References

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