The study also found that if the basic content of the education plan is limited to providing students with the information that "all drugs are dangerous". This information will be considered simple and inaccurate by young people. And the authority of the project may be damaged. Long-term research results show that this method rarely affects people's behavior; This is an inefficient method of health education. Therefore, most existing drug abuse prevention education programs no longer use this method.
3.2 Knowledge-providing type
After discovering that intimidation has little effect in preventing drug abuse, the research work turned to providing teenagers with information and knowledge about drugs, hoping to change their attitudes and behaviors. The most basic model of this method can be summarized as knowledge-attitude-behavior model. The model holds that as long as the public is provided with knowledge about the negative effects of drugs, they will hold a negative attitude towards drug use, which will lead to changes in their behavior. However, educational programs using this technology have not been shown to be more effective than threatening education. Although many projects can increase the knowledge level of the educated, they are not helpful to reduce the drug abuse rate. What's more, some studies show that knowledge about drugs may increase young people's interest in drugs and try them. If only young people are provided with drug knowledge without other education, it will lead to an increase in drug abuse.
Of course, although the existing drug abuse education programs no longer only rely on disseminating information to teenagers, providing relevant knowledge is still an important part of its content.
3.3 Types of life skills practice
With the further development of drug abuse prevention education, people will turn their attention from knowledge dissemination to life skills practice. Educators design some classroom activities to help students improve their self-esteem, promote communication skills, value orientation and how to make correct decisions. The theoretical basis of this method is that drug abuse is a part of many problem behaviors, which is related to many individual factors and influenced by social and cultural background. These factors include age, gender, personality, curiosity, adventurous spirit, peer pressure and family problems. According to this theory, as long as children's life skills, especially how to look at themselves and communicate with others, are improved, the possibility of all behavioral problems will be reduced. This method has been proved to be successful in preventing and treating drug abuse. For example, a project called "Chemical substance abuse prevention education" implemented in England has achieved certain results. The results showed that the level of drug knowledge and the ability to resist peer pressure in the experimental group were higher than those in the control group. However, the immediate effect of the program in changing subjects' attitudes towards drugs and reducing related behaviors is not obvious.
Of course, like any other education process, drug abuse prevention education is a long-term work. If there is no long-term effect evaluation, it is difficult to say whether they are effective or ineffective. In this regard, some studies have some encouraging findings. For example, a four-year follow-up survey suggested that the "Chemical Substance Abuse Prevention Education Project" has a long-term effect on changing students' attitudes towards drugs, and a lagging effect on drug abuse behavior of some groups.
To sum up, life skills training is the most successful method so far, but there are still many disputes in drug abuse prevention education. For example, what to teach, how to teach, and who to teach. 4 the content of drug abuse prevention education
In Britain, people have different views on drug abuse and how to effectively educate young people. For those who don't take drug abuse as the only recognized code of conduct, "saying no to drugs" is their favorite way of education. Others believe that regulating the behavior of young people should not be the task of schools. Young people should decide for themselves whether to abuse drugs. From these people's point of view, schools should provide students with knowledge and information about drugs and tell them people's extensive and different ideas and attitudes towards drug abuse. They believe that drug abuse prevention education should encourage teenagers to decide what to do after acquiring relevant knowledge, rather than simply telling them what kind of decision to make.
As for what information about drugs should be provided, most teachers and students
The positive and negative effects of drugs should be included in the certification course. It has been found that if the positive effects of drugs are not mentioned to young people, the credibility of educational projects will be reduced and the effectiveness of the projects will be jeopardized. At the same time, if students are only told about the negative effects of drugs, they will be more eager to explore its other effects. More importantly, some studies show that some young people regard the use of illegal drugs as a normal part of their growth. Therefore, some people think that no matter how hard educators try, there will always be young people who try or even use illegal drugs for a long time. Therefore, they believe that the effect of preventive education is to improve people's knowledge level, master the skills of how to make decisions, and let young people better understand what they are doing. In other words, their point of view is that preventive education can reduce the harm associated with it, but it cannot fundamentally eliminate drug abuse. Therefore, they suggest that educators should consider this point and focus on encouraging users to be cautious when using drugs in preventive education to minimize the harm. 5. Drug abuse prevention education teachers
5. 1 teacher
Many studies show that in the eyes of parents and schools, teachers are the most suitable candidates for drug abuse prevention education, while other lecturers from outside the school can provide information to students from various professional angles. There may be the following reasons for this view: teachers have a large number of students in schools; Teachers have the skills to communicate with children; Some parents lack confidence to talk about illegal drugs with their children because they don't have enough knowledge, or just want to transfer the responsibility of educating their children to teachers. In the teacher-centered project, there are two factors that can affect the effect of education: one is the quality of teachers themselves, such as knowledge level and self-confidence; The second is the relationship between teachers and students. In fact, many teachers worry that they don't know enough about illegal drugs. Sometimes students may know many different kinds of illegal drugs, but teachers know nothing about them. When students know more than teachers, it is difficult for preventive education programs to achieve the expected results. This makes it necessary to train teachers. Of course, the failure caused by teachers' lack of knowledge can be corrected by using students' knowledge reasonably and correctly, which requires the adoption of student-centered learning methods. In this regard, "interactive" and "participatory teaching" are considered to be more effective methods. Unfortunately, some teachers are unfamiliar with this method or have no confidence in using this technique. Even those teachers who have mastered this skill may be reluctant to use this skill in sensitive topics such as drug abuse prevention education, thus weakening the effectiveness of some projects that should be good.
5.2 In the eyes of teachers, parents and students, the staff of police stations, health promotion agencies and health facilities and former drug abusers can all play a role in the education of drug abuse prevention and control. Some teachers feel that the guidance of lecturers from off-campus institutions makes the school feel more relaxed in preventive education, and also frees them from the pressure of becoming experts. The police are the most frequently asked off-campus tutors in schools. They teach in schools or train teachers. "Anti-illegal drug abuse project" is a typical police-led preventive education project. This project originated in the United States and later expanded to some parts of Britain. Of course, some people hold different opinions on such projects. The most common criticism is that this kind of project violates the suggestion of the British Ministry of Education that teachers should be the main teachers of drug abuse prevention education. As pointed out in the document of the British Ministry of Education, schools must assume their responsibilities in drug abuse prevention education, rather than simply arranging off-campus counselors to give a lecture or show a video. Another project involving the cooperation between the police and the school is a project jointly designed and developed by the Grampian Police Department and the Education Bureau of Scotland. It is called: Police Box: Lifelong Learning. Different from DARE, although it also emphasizes the cooperation between police and teachers, it is always led by teachers in the implementation process. In addition, the project may be included in the national syllabus for implementation throughout the school year. But at present, there is no research to evaluate its effectiveness.
The study also shows that for some young people, one of the most powerful ways to prevent drug abuse education is to invite former drug abusers to school to talk about the problems caused by drugs in their lives. But when using this method, schools must be careful, because it may make students feel that using illegal drugs is magical and try it.
5.3 partner
In recent years, peer education has been widely used in sex education, and recently, it has also been applied in the field of drug abuse prevention education. The theoretical basis of this method is that young people may know more about illegal drugs than adults, and young people may prefer to listen to other young people rather than be lectured by adults. When implementing this method, senior students can tell junior students to reduce injuries, or some students can provide peer education to their peers. An example is the Youth Awareness Project in Newham, East London. Peer teacher (peer)
The task of the tutor is to provide information to peers in a non-didactic way. The qualitative evaluation of the project confirmed the important role of peers in drug abuse prevention education. It has a certain effect in educating young people to reduce harm, strengthening the determination of non-abusers not to abuse drugs, encouraging drug addicts not to develop further, and urging those drug addicts who have already felt problems to stop using or reduce dosage.
5.4 Parents
No matter what form of preventive education is taken, it is not enough to teach children themselves. Effective educational programs should also include the participation of parents and other community members. Many people of insight wrote articles calling on parents to participate in the process of drug abuse prevention education. However, previous educational programs rarely involved parents' participation.
In practice, some schools began to try to organize parents to attend parent-teacher conferences and provide them with relevant knowledge to enhance their understanding of drug abuse. Usually, the school will invite the police to give lectures and preside over discussions. However, although people have realized the importance of home-school cooperation, it is still difficult for schools to gather all parents when organizing such activities. A study in Scotland shows that no school has successfully gathered a large number of parents to participate in such activities. One of the reasons for the low participation rate of parents may be related to their own life behaviors such as drinking and taking drugs; At the same time, it may also be caused by the characteristics of the educational project itself, such as time, place and content. In order to solve this problem, educators have adopted some alternative methods. For example, parents can receive education in the workplace, especially those who don't like traditional education methods. Facts have proved that preventive education to reduce drug abuse in the workplace can improve parents' self-confidence in dealing with related incidents.
The survey results show that parents lack confidence in discussing illegal drugs with their children because they lack understanding of such items and related events. But they really don't want to be excluded from the education process. In view of this, some parent training programs have been implemented in Britain, and all the trainees said that they have increased their knowledge and confidence in dealing with incidents related to illegal drugs. However, there is little research on how home-school cooperation affects the accurate evaluation of preventive education.
In short, the British government attaches great importance to the prevention education of drug abuse among young people. Although there are still many different opinions on the specific implementation plan, all walks of life have gradually reached some consensus: primary and secondary schools have a place in drug abuse prevention education; Preventive education should start from a younger age, that is, from primary school; Drug abuse prevention education should include not only illegal drugs, but also legal substance abuse, such as alcohol, tobacco and organic solvents. Many factors will affect the effectiveness of drug abuse prevention education program, including: the reliability of information provided, teaching.