Strengthening Families Program: For Parents and Youth 10-14

This is a program aimed at monitoring parents with children and adolescents. The objectives are to reduce aggressive and hostile behavior and substance use in adolescence, and to promote good parenting skills and positive family relationships.
The intervention is carried out in seven meetings, each lasting two hours, which include training for parents, skills development for adolescents, and family therapy. Parents learn ways to clarify their expectations based on normal adolescent development and substance use, using appropriate disciplinary practices and effective communication.

Impact evaluations

Impact evaluation studies have shown that the program led to a statistically significant reduction in alcohol initiation rates, reports of less alcohol, cigarette, and cannabis use, alcohol abuse without parental permission, drunkenness, symptoms of anxiety and depression, delayed use of multiple substances, and less methamphetamine use [1] [2] [3]. No significant effect was observed on participation in and development of parenting skills.

Bibliographic reference

[1] Spoth, R., Guyll, M., Chao, W., & Molgaard, V. (2003). Exploratory study of a preventive intervention with general population African American families. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 23(4), 435-468.

[2] Spoth, R., Redmond, C., Shin, C., & Azevedo, K. (2004). Brief family intervention effects on adolescent substance initiation: school-level growth curve analyses 6 years following baseline. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 72(3), 535.

[3] Spoth, R., Randall, G. K., & Shin, C. (2008). Increasing school success through partnership-based family competency training: Experimental study of long-term outcomes. School Psychology Quarterly, 23(1), 70.

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