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Program Findings Sheet

Greater Alliance of Prevention Systems (GAPS)

The Illinois Department of Alcohol and Substance Abuse

Program Participants Lowered Alcohol Use

Location
Chicago’s West Side communities of Garfield Park, Lawndale, and Austin

Program sites
Schools, religious institutions, community clinics, workshops, and rallies.

Target group
Community leaders, youth at high risk for substance abuse, and all residents of the target communities.

Program objectives

  • Develop life skills; effective coping skills; and improved decision-making, problem-solving, and communication skills among youth at high risk for substance abuse.

  • Increase youth understanding of cultural heritage.

  • Create community consensus on social policies for drug use.

  • Involve residents in reducing community drug problems.
Findings
  • There was a significant reduction in alcohol and tobacco use and a decrease in marijuana use among targeted participants as measured by the Botvin Substance Abuse Inventory (p < .05). No significant changes were detected among a comparison group of youth residing in the GAPS targeted community, but not participating in the program.

  • There was a significant increase in self-reported assertiveness skills as measured by the Botvin Assertion Inventory (p < .01).

  • There was a significant increase in cultural pride as measured by the Millions Therapeutic Environment Scale (p < .01).

  • A networking infrastructure of community-based groups was organized to combat drugs and crime in the three communities. Community vigil marches were successful in closing many drug houses in the community.

  • A State law was passed outlawing drug paraphernalia, largely due to the efforts of community groups organized under this project.
Evaluation design
  • Evaluation of the outcome objectives was based on comparison of pre- and posttest scores from standardized instruments comparing a randomly selected sample of youth in high-risk environments receiving program services and a randomly selected control group of youth who lived in the same community.
Program interventions
  • Provide education to demonstrate that accurate and sufficient information presented in a culturally relevant manner can effect behavioral change and reduce incidence and prevalence of drug use.

  • Provide alternate activities to help youth learn about their culture.

  • Provide a social competence component on peer leadership groups for youth in high-risk environments.

  • Provide educational groups for parents to learn about child development.

  • Train a core of community leaders (“impactors”) to develop and implement a community action plan to change both formal and informal policies in the community with the intent to limit the exposure to and availability of alcohol and drugs in the community.

Greater Alliance of Prevention Systems (GAPS)

Program Description

The Greater Alliance of Prevention Systems (Grant #1013) was a 3-year, community-based program administered by the Illinois Department of Alcohol and Substance Abuse in suburban Chicago. The project targeted African-American, Hispanic, and White youth at risk for alcohol and drug problems aged 6–18 throughout the community. The goal of the program was to positively affect their level of risk and motivate them to help in mobilizing community resources to decrease drug and alcohol use throughout the community. GAPS included five main interventions:

  • Social Policy. This included recruiting, educating, and mobilizing community agencies, organizations, and residents to make them aware of the potential impact they could have on community drug abuse problems. Protest vigils, marches, and community forums were organized.

  • Training Impactors. The Prevention Partnership met with various parent and community groups on a monthly basis and assisted in establishing timelines for their community-based action plans.

  • Alternate Activities. The African American Heritage Project involved youth in art, music, and drama projects and activities designed to make them more culturally aware.

  • Information and Education. Hispanic Alcoholism Services, Inc., made community presentations, held workshops, and disseminated information brochures and posters to make individuals more aware both of the risks of alcohol use and the means to achieve prevention.

  • Social Competence and Skills Building. Participating youth received peer leadership training incorporating role-playing and cognitive and behavioral strategies. Peer leadership activities included role-playing and discussion and focused on decision making and problem solving, conflict resolution, values clarification, and refusal skills.
The evaluation of GAPS attempted to assess the overall effect of three integrated GAPS components: alternate activities, education and information, and social competence and skills building. The evaluation employed a pre-post design with treatment and comparison groups. A total of 69 participants were randomly selected from among all those actively engaged in two or three of the evaluated program components. The comparison group was composed of 58 same-age youth living in the community, perhaps passively exposed to some aspects of the intervention but not actively participating in any aspect of the program.

Multivariate analyses revealed that the levels of substance use for GAPS participants clearly decreased over time, while use levels of comparison youth remained relatively constant. GAPS participants showed significant decreases in cigarette use (p<.05) and alcohol use (p<.05) and a marginally significant decrease in marijuana use (p<.10), while comparison youth remained the same. In addition, relative to comparisons, GAPS participants demonstrated significant increases in assertiveness (p<.01) and cultural pride (p<.01). GAPS participants and comparisons were found not to differ on measures of locus of control, self-esteem, or drug knowledge or attitudes at any point in the study.

Additional analyses attempted to better understand the correlates of substance use in these samples. Three variables were found to be significantly related to overall substance use: positive alcohol, tobacco, and drug attitudes; low levels of assertiveness; and low levels of cultural pride. Given these data, the program staff promote the hypothesis that GAPS may have accomplished much of the observed change in teen substance use by successfully effecting improvements in assertiveness and cultural pride.


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Last Updated: March 4, 2002