Let's Talk About Presentations!

Hi all!! Wow. What, a, week.

I began my week visiting the University of Southern California, which was a very very fun experience. I really enjoyed getting to know the campus better, and it’s incredible to start see the intense college process become something real (no matter the college). I spent Monday and Tuesday in the warm and beautiful eighty degree weather of Los Angeles, and, with a big weekend currently happening (which I will explain later), that left me with only two days to work. Do the math and that leads to two 8 hour work days. Woo!!!

I started Wednesday bright and early (and I mean early because I was on the road at seven) off on my way to Chandler. Once I made it out there I had the pleasure of attending two presentations, both on substance abuse. I know a lot of you asked about what is included in the presentations, so now I can give you more information! They often include personal stories from the presenters if it is applicable. The presentations very based on topic but always include coping mechanisms and resources. These coping mechanisms include sports, ways to stay healthy, hobbies, people to surround yourself with, and mental health tips. The resources always include other people to reach out to. Who? Teen life line, the texting line of teen life line, Not My Kid, and a few others.

I really enjoyed attending my first presentations. The presenter was very inspiring and did an incredible job engaging both of the groups. Afterwords I drove to a much less affluent part of Phoenix for a presentation on bullying. This presentation also included a personal story, and, even in just the initial observations, it was immediately clear that the presentation had a much different affect on this group.

On Thursday, I again started my morning with a  presentation in a very affluent part of Phoenix. The presentation was pretty much a bust, which, in the grand scheme of my research, is very interesting and actually gives a great amount of data. For one, it was interesting to see how the teachers were very unsupportive at this school. Secondly, this was a huge group, about 4 times the size of the other presentations. And third, this school was very nice. I’m very eager at analyze the results.

The most interesting presentation though was certainly the Thursday night one, a presentation on suicide, depression, and self-harm. This school was in the same district as Independence high school, which, if you remember, recently had a very real and tragic encounter with suicide. This particular presentation unlike the others was a  parent presentation. They were very very invested and had very emotional reactions. The questions they asked truly opened my eyes and this whole experience really has already started to do so.

I’m looking forward to seeing where all of the data leads. Until next time!!

A Complicated World of Preparation

Hello all!

As week two comes to a close, I am extremely excited to share all about my new adventures during my first week out in the real world. I started my long-awaited internship on Tuesday with Not My Kid and could not have asked for a better start. From meeting the incredibly smart, witty, and kind staff, to getting acclimated in my new environment, I am so grateful to have been welcoming with open arms into the Not My Kid family and cannot wait for the rest of this journey. To give you an idea of how warm of an environment Not My Kid is, here are some photos of the office space during which I spend my time if I'm not out on the field during presentations:

This week was all about preparation, and, in such a complicated field like prevention, there was certainly a lot to do. After figuring out which presentations I would be attending and collection both primary and secondary data from (through both surveys and observation data), the next step was figuring out how the results would be analyzed so that the research could provide viable results. That is, the question became "How do we group the schools into specific characteristic groups that will allow us to find correlations in the data?" And, although I would have loved to been able to say "this school is in X city which means it has X risk factors and X protection factors," this task is much more complicated.  

Just some AP stats for you today, this research all culminates in an observational study. That is, no variables are being controlled in the study, rather we are looking back at every piece of information we have in order to find connections and inferences that will give us insight on how to best effect the lives of these teens. Which essentially means it is IMPERATIVE that all the data be carefully collected and recorded and organized, a task I have a whole new level of respect for. This also means that graphs and charts are my new best friend as I've spent most of this week engrossed in creating and organizing them for the next couple of months.

I began by grouping schools by zip code. This allowed me to analyze risk factors such as graduation rates and average household income. By comparing both their ranking in Arizona on a basis of graduation rate and average household income, I was then able to further categorize the schools, grouping them with ones of similar risk status. From there, careful consideration of school district and location/proximity resulted in the following 6 groups.  

It was vital to group them together for a couple of reasons. First, the groups will allow me to approach each school and presentation knowing general characteristics and risk factors of the area. Secondly, I will not be able to collect significantly more data on the risk and protection factors prevalent in each school. That is, the groupings allow me get data from the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission based on the groupings of the zip codes. Finally, this grouping will be an essential part in organizing the data, allowing me to compare the results from each presentation (with both the primary and secondary data) and to analyze the factors determining the effectiveness of the program.

Overall, it's been a great busy week. There was one hiccup in the road which ended up being quite an exciting learning experience as well. Aside from counting endless piles of surveys for the upcoming month (see below)

 I was scheduled to attend my first presentation this past Wednesday. More to come on this experience later (as I will be visiting this school again in the upcoming month), but the presentation ended up being a no show, a valuable lesson to learn when you are in the field of public work. However, it was a great experience regardless and it can only go up from here! No, but really, we are spending extra time analyzing the area surrounding this particular school and are really hoping this research can make a difference there. 

beautiful set up right?

All in all, it has been an incredible and productive first week. Preliminary data is organized, there is a clear plan for action, and I cannot wait to collect these new rounds of data in the upcoming weeks. 

Until next time!

Shir

Drug Prevention: What Research Has Been Done in the Past?

Hello all! 

It’s been a beautiful week here in sunny Arizona, and it’s been a great week to spend some time catching up on research before I head into my internship with Not My Kid on Tuesday! As I explained in my last blog post, Not My Kid educates and works on preventing several types of risky teen behavior, ranging from unhealthy relationships, drug abuse, and self-harm. However, I decided to spend the week delving into researching previous prevention methods and past research on the effectiveness of drug prevention methods. 

It’s first important to remember why my research, which not only evaluates Not My Kid’s effectiveness, but also compares the effectiveness across different demographics of teens, is relevant. According to studies conducted by the National Academy Press in Washington DC,

“The potential impact of specific risk and protective factors changes with age. For example, risk factors within the family have greater impact on a younger child, while association with drug-abusing peers may be a more significant risk factor for an adolescent”(National Institution on Drug Abuse).

Following this, it is imperative that we compare age groups in the success of the prevention method. That is, because risk factors have a more prevalent impact on younger individuals the question then follows, are educational prevention methods more or less effective with individuals more at risk. The hope, of course, is that, although these individuals are more at risk, they are also more receptive to the prevention methods and more positively affected by them, a hope which raises the states on the results of my research. The same follows for gender, ethnicity, culture, and environment as is supported by research conducted by Moon, Hecht, Jackson, & Spellers. Keeping these factors in mind, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, backed by extensive research of their own, proposes that “successful prevention programs” must not only be tailored to the age, gender, ethnicity, culture, and environment/community but must also address the use of both legal and illegal substances. The National Institute on Drug Abuse then spends some time focusing on family programming. However, because Not My Kid is focused on separate teen and adult programming, I chose to continue my research in finding what they suggest should make a prevention program successful. I found that research has shown that successful programming for teens should address “study habits and academic support; communication; peer relationships; self-efficacy and assertiveness; drug resistance skills; reinforcement of anti-drug attitudes; and strengthening of personal commitments against drug abuse” (National Institution on Drug Abuse). Not surprisingly, most research done in the past on effective prevention programs, leads to similar conclusions on teen engagement, something I’ve been fortunate to work extensively with as an active leader in the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY). Sources speak of being interactive, allowing role play, and adapting to audiences, all basic principles of engagement. Other programs centered on drug prevention have found success in different ways. For example, the Classroom-Centered (CC) and Family-School Partnership (FSP) Intervention, a program centered in the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health has found success in integrating parents into the program and by extending their efforts to the classroom. Lions-Quest Skills for Adolescence (SFA), an organization centered in Washington DC takes a similar approach to that reflected in Not My Kid’s mission statement: boosting the self-esteem and feeling of responsibility in teens. Organizations like these fall under the category of research based prevention methods and I look forward to finding out more about what has made them successful, thus giving me the ability to compare the results of my research to the results of others’.

It’s been a great week and I can’t wait to get delve into the project more on Tuesday! I’ll be heading to the cold tundra of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin for a North American Youth Leadership Conference, so wish me luck as I attempt to tackle 5 degree weather! Stay tuned for next week! Shir Works Cited Robertson, Elizabeth B., Ph.D., Susan L. David, M.H.P, and Suman A. Rao, Ph.D. "Preventing Drug Use among Children and Adolescents (In Brief)." National Institute on Drug Abuse. National Institute on Drug Abuse; National Institutes of Health; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services., n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2016.

Moon, D.; Hecht, M.; Jackson, K.; and Spellers, R. Ethnic and gender differences and similarities in adolescent drug use and refusals of drug offers. Substance Use and Misuse34(8):1059–1083, 1999.

Gerstein, D.R. and Green, L.W., eds. Preventing Drug Abuse: What Do We Know? Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1993.