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Program Findings Sheet

Creating Lasting Connections (CLC)

Council on Prevention and Education: Substances (COPES)

CLC Parents Increase Substance Abuse Knowledge - Communication and Management Skills

Location
Louisville, Jefferson, and Nelson Counties, Kentucky

Program sites
Five church communities in rural, suburban, and urban settings.

Target group
11- to 15-year-old youth at high risk for alcohol and drug use and their families.

Program objectives

  • Increase church community engagement through implementing a successful family recruitment strategy, empowering participants to successfully implement the program and its evaluation.

  • Improve participating parents’ knowledge and attitudes regarding drug issues, improve their family management skills, and increase their knowledge and use of community services.

  • Increase the use of community services, including treatment and rehabilitation services, among participating families when needed.

  • Improve the communication and refusal skills of participating youth.

  • Delay onset and reduce frequency of alcohol and drug use among participating youth.
Findings
  • Increased church community engagement as shown by successful family recruitment and increased levels of empowerment and participation.

  • Increased parent resiliency through gains in parents’ knowledge and beliefs about alcohol and drug issues, youth involvement in setting alcohol and drug rules, and use of community services.

  • Increased youth resiliency through gains in leveling communication, bonding with family members, and use of community services.

  • As family and youth resiliency increased, the following youth alcohol and drug outcomes occurred: delayed onset and reduced frequency of alcohol and drug use.
Evaluation design
  • The outcome evaluation included both quantitative and qualitative methods to determine short-term gains (6–7 months) and sustained gains (1 year).

  • Families were randomly assigned to a program or comparison group in five church communities. Comparison of the two groups on key individual-, family-, and community-level characteristics found no differences between the two groups.

  • An adequacy of performance design using record data and assessments of an expert consultant and program staff as shallow controls determined program effects on church community engagement.

  • A randomized block design with repeated measures assessed program effects on family and individual youth outcomes.
Program interventions
  • Identify, recruit, assess, and select church communities.

  • Form and conduct orientation of church advocate teams.

  • Train church advocate teams in an 8- to 10-week training session.

  • Recruit families in high-risk environments and hold family-oriented social activities.

  • Train parents in relevant alcohol and drug issues.

  • Provide training to parents on family enhancement and management, including improving communication about, setting expectations for, and defining consequences for youth alcohol- and drug-related behavior.

  • Offer training to parents and youth in constructive decision making.

Creating Lasting Connections (CLC)

Program Description

Creating Lasting Connections was a 5-year HRY demonstration grant (Grant #1279) administered by the Council on Prevention and Education: Substances, Inc. (COPES) in Louisville, Jefferson, and Nelson Counties in Kentucky. The program was designed to work with both community and family systems to identify youth and parents or guardians at high risk for substance use; increase familial resilience to and decrease risk for substance use; provide support services, including appropriate social services referrals, for families in need; and mobilize communities to prevent substance use. The CLC program design is a community-based approach. This program can be implemented through churches, schools, recreation centers, and a wide variety of community organizations that have regular contact with youth and families.

Because churches already foster natural support systems, they were selected as the pivotal community agency from which to implement this culturally appropriate early intervention program for youth at risk for substance use aged 11–15 and their families. Churches have significant contact with parents and youth, have existing social outreach programs, and are linked with other human service providers. Initially, 42 of 132 churches contacted responded favorably to program recruitment letters. COPES conducted a rigorous review of these churches and their communities, finally selecting five with populations in greatest need of program services and having adequate potential for addressing those needs. Additional selection criteria were employed to ensure a balanced mix of geographic location (urban, suburban, rural) and ethnic groups (African-American, White, mixed).

After being selected, church communities developed Church Advocate Teams (CATs) composed of 5–10 church staff and nominated community members. CAT staff underwent an average of 20 hours of training over seven sessions, after which they were tasked with performing outreach activities, identifying and recruiting 11- to 15-year-olds at risk of substance use and their families, scheduling field data collection, and preparing linkages for successful self-referrals with various human service providers.

Overall, 131 youth and their families were recruited for participation in the CLC intervention. The family program involved a 20- to 25-week series of training. Initially, parents and guardians and teens met in separate sessions before meeting as intact families in the final sessions. Participating parents and guardians received about 55 hours of training on substance use issues (20 hours), parenting skills (20 hours), and communication skills (15 hours). Youth received about 15 hours of training concerning substance use issues, communication skills, and refusal skills.

Families requiring substance use intervention or other social services were referred to appropriate agencies by the trainers and/or case manager. CAT members and/or the staff case manager performed telephone and/or in-house followups with participating families for 1 year subsequent to their participation in CLC.

Program function was assessed through the implementation of an extensive process and outcome evaluation effort. Program outcomes were assessed by means of an experimental treatment and control group design involving three waves of measurement: a baseline assessment prior to group assignment, an immediate postassessment (7 months after beginning participation in the intervention), and a remote postmeasure (12 months after program participation began). Within each church community, families were assigned randomly to treatment or wait-list control condition. The outcome evaluation design also benefited from the relatively low attrition rate (34%), initial comparability of treatment and control groups, and solid checks and quality assurances regarding the integrity of program implementation across sites and years.

Results from this study are complex, deriving from a total of seven experimental sites assessed over 5 years. Still, data indicate that the intervention was effective in increasing a number of resiliency factors, and that these improvements were related to substance use. More specifically relative to controls, participating parents:

  • Realized short-term and sustained gains in level of substance use knowledge and beliefs and their use of community services to help resolve family and personal problems.

  • Reported short-term and sustained reductions in family (both parents) frequency of alcohol use in one site. Further, the level of church community activity was found to mediate sustained reductions in alcohol use across all sites.

  • Reported short-term improvements in communication with their children. However, these perceived gains were not corroborated by youth.
Contrary to expectations, the program had no effect on family management practices relating to the extent of use of family rules. However, when family substance use rules were used, the program directly improved parents’ involvement of youth in setting these rules.

Relative to controls, participating youth:

  • Reported using community services when problems arose.

  • Realized short-term and sustained gains in bonding with their mothers. Increased bonding was mediated both by level of church community activity and positive family communication.

  • Reported greater levels of honest communication and bonding with fathers and siblings, though this effect too was mediated by overall levels of positive family communication, decreased parental substance use, and greater involvement of the youth in setting rules and being involved in community activities.

  • Often experienced short-term and sustained delays in the onset of alcohol and drug use as well as the frequency of alcohol and drug use. While the overall effects were small, analyses indicated that gains on these variable measures became most substantial as substance use knowledge increased, family conflict decreased, probability of punishment for transgressing increased, and family bonding and communication increased.
Overall, these data indicate that as the intervention improved family function and community empowerment, parental and youth substance use decreased.

The National Dissemination Model

As a result of the success of the CLC program, COPES has refined this model for nationwide distribution. The revised and updated version of the CLC program is entitled the Creating Lasting Family Connections Program (CLFC).

The figure below illustrates the individual training components that make up the CLFC prevention program model.

Each of the individual Creating Lasting Family Connections parent training modules above is a 5–6 week (2.5 hours a week) module with the exception of the Optional Getting Real: Parent and Youth Combined Sessions, which typically require about three 2.5-hour sessions. Each of the youth trainings is 5–6 weeks and 1.5 hours in length and is designed to be appropriate for youth between the ages of 9–17. It is recommended that youth groups be divided into the following developmental groupings: 9–11, 12–14, and 15–17.

For maximum effectiveness, parents and youth are engaged in all four modules consecutively and simultaneously. However, the CLFC program is designed with the following different implementation options:

  • The modules (parent and youth) can be spread out over a longer period based on participant and provider needs. This is very beneficial because not all families are able to commit to a 20-week program. They can participate in 5-week increments spread throughout the year.

  • The parent trainings can be offered without the youth trainings (consecutively or spread throughout the year).

  • The youth trainings can be offered without the parent trainings (consecutively or spread throughout the year).

  • The parent trainings can be provided as a Training of Impactors for social workers, youth service providers, preventionists, and other caring adults who work with youth.

Parent & Youth Trainings


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Last Updated: March 4, 2002