Introduction
Preventing the misuse of alcohol and other drugs is one of the unchallenged topics in the most diverse social contexts, including schools, family settings, and communities. Learning institutions play a positive role in the provision of shelters to adolescents in a given community. In such environments, young individuals will tend to interact with classmates and workers, thereby becoming at risk of being introduced to the world of drugs. Some universal school programs have shown significant effectiveness in reducing consumption and delaying the onset of drug use. Among the successful prevention models are those that consider social influences to initiate consumption. Programs based on this model address the risk and protective factors associated with drug use and teach skills that contribute to student social and personal competence. The introduction of a counseling program presents an effective action plan for educating students and encouraging them to deal with the problematic issue of drug abuse in learning institutions.
Subject and Target Audience
The proposed educational program is founded on the idea that students should understand that human health is not a private matter for everyone. Instead, they ought to engage in behaviors and activities that support the overall welfare of the wider society. The program is intended to provide for the possibility of a deeper study of individual topics that are of the greatest importance for achieving the outlined goals. Its successful implementation will support and sustain a healthy lifestyle for each of the targeted beneficiaries. The project is designed in accordance with the age characteristics of students while taking into consideration their needs and interests (De Shazer et al., 2021). The program is informed by a number of aspects, such as age and the learners’ cognitive capabilities. To date, most students have experienced numerous problems associated with drug addiction and substance abuse. But it is obvious that sooner or later teachers will have to deal with these difficult problems, and maybe with the diseases themselves, with cases of drug trafficking, with socially dangerous groups.
The main audience for the program is students who are at risk of drug addiction and abuse. Parents and teachers can be part of the program since they will receive additional instructions on how to handle their school-going children (Rono, Kimengi, & Githinji, 2019). The decision to target parents and teachers will not be for the sake of therapy but to improve awareness of how to help students avoid drug abuse. Individuals in learning institutions tend to have a strong desire to take a substance, and dependence can manifest itself in the fact that the substance is taken more often and in higher doses or for a longer period of time than intended. A student is considered as a unity of the bodily and spiritual, that is, the work should be aimed at the formation of values and skills to improve the health of the body and morals, as well as the development of the emotional and volitional aspects of the personality. Thus, it is more important to focus to the students as it will create a better society impacting the future.
Rationale
The rationale behind this program is that drug abuse remains a predicament in many societies across the globe. For instance, Zhang, Franklin, Currin-McCulloch, Park, and Kim (2018) reported that around 38 percent of people above the age of 18 continued to grapple with one or more types of drug use disorder. In another study, around 1 in every 8 people was affected by the problem of alcohol or drug use (Kim, Brook, & Akin, 2018). In another research, Horigian, Schmidt, and Feaster (2021) observed that around 45 percent of college learners in the United States were abusing different types of drugs. Gilbert, Kava, and Afifi (2021) indicated that at least 18 percent of students were used various illicit drugs. Without proper counseling mechanisms to mitigate this social problem, chances are high that more learners in different institutions will start to embrace the malpractice.
Past scholars have gone further to associate teenage drug use with poor academic outcomes and subsequent failure in life. For example, Horigian et al. (2021) observe that learners who decide to engage in drugs tend to increase their chances of dropping out of school or reporting truancy issues. In the long run, these individuals will fail to complete their academic activities and be unable to achieve their maximum potential. Based on these serious issues, experts believe that the introduction of additional initiatives and programs could help improve the situation for learners and their educators (Kim et al., 2018). The promotion of effective and personalized projects can sensitize more students about the dangers of dangers and how to avoid them.
When implemented in a professional manner, personalized counseling programs can promote activities that provide the development and learning of personal and social skills, including how to deal with everyday situations and decision-making. Middle-level educational institutions, such as vocational schools and colleges, tend to implement evidence-based mechanisms with the aim of dealing with and preventing the increasing level of drug use. Unfortunately, most of these measures in place remain ineffective or incapable of delivering positive results in a timely manner (Gilbert et al., 2021). This gap arises from the absence of proper guidelines and educational procedures that are personalized and capable of working synergistically with the leaning strategies already in place. According to De Shazer et al. (2021), the absence of unified state programs could explain why the existing preventive measures are ineffective or inefficient. In this regard, one of the most important aspects of drug preventive work in the education system is the introduction of personalized counseling programs.
Program Goals
The SMART concept guides project implementers in identifying goals that are reasonable and capable of delivering positive outcomes in a timely manner. The first aim of this program will be to equip learners with personalized information regarding the common drugs that have the potential to result in addiction and affect academic performance. It is agreeable that learners have access to details regarding some of the addictive substances and behaviors associated with them from various media outlets. However, it is necessary to clarify this vast amount of information about such drugs (De Shazer et al., 2021). Some key areas to consider will include their effects on the body, forms of consumption, and some of the associated risks, such as legal implications and truancy.
The second goal is to empower and guide the identified beneficiaries to acquire new concepts for improving their life skills and increasing their knowledge on health issues. The individuals will learn more about the process of drug prevention and how it promotes responsible behaviors, zest for life, creativity, and endurance whenever challenges emerge. The students will be expected to acquire new strategies for finding alternative solutions to complex situations (Carlson et al., 2020). The program will raise awareness of addiction problems and encourage more people to appreciate the risks associated with addictive substances.
The third objective is to ensure that the introduced program helps prevent or reduce the harmful consumption of alcohol, medicines and illegal drugs at an early stage. It will provide the students with a safe space for sharing their challenges on drug abuse and build up the confidence of students on dealing with drug abuse. The program will enable teachers and parents to support more learners and approach them in a professional manner (Curran, Burk, Pitt, & Middleman, 2018). They will master the art of reacting appropriately in the event of drug abuse while in school and whenever addiction problems arise. Consequently, the program will create conditions to students to acquire the skills necessary for a life without psychoactive substances and self-knowledge skills.
Program Details
Program Duration and Reasoning
The required timeline for the program will depend in its overall success and the subsequent realization of the outlined objectives. Since there are different students attending the schools at the long run, the program should be long term to keep targeting the new students. The program should be implemented in the school by setting aside an office for therapy (Foss-Kelly, Generali, & Crowley, 2021). The program will take five weeks which is enough time to have counseled the students and give them enough therapy.
Key Activities
During the first week, the planners will identify and prepare the therapy office. They will consider the second week to train the recruited staff members. Such a process will be comprised of three sessions whereby teachers, volunteers, and other participants in the school will be prioritized. On the third week the program, the professionals will meet with parents to inform them of the purpose of the suggested therapies and why all students would be involved (see Table 1). During these processes, adequate data will be collected to help the involved therapists learn more about the environment and create personalized content for the students (Seçim, 2017). The educational process will include joint trainings that create awareness of the program while creating a friendly environment to help the students understand the need of the therapy. The proposed therapy sessions will then begin during the following week. After five weeks, chances are high that the institution will have recorded some notable progress.
The intended brief counseling practices will entail spending few minutes dealing with the issue of tobacco and other drugs and working on prevention for non-users. The next step will be a conversation aimed at meeting the demands of drug users. Such an elaborate process will require more time and dedication (Muhajirah, 2020). The intervention phase could take the form of a conversation and may include feedback on drug use, information about harm, and advice on how to reduce consumption. The recommended program intervention will include the idea of behavioral change counseling (see Table 1). One of the unique characteristics of the proposed program is the concept of continuity.
All the people involved with a prevention program will be required to engage in continuous experimentation and learning (Muhajirah, 2020). For example, they will be encouraged to replicate such activities with their parents or guardians. Such efforts will empower the beneficiaries and ensure that they are willing to overcome a wide range of concerns, including peer influence and subsequent drug abuse. One week will be required to evaluate the success and effectiveness of the completed program.
Table 1: Activities and required duration
Program Evaluation
To evaluation criteria for the proposed program is informed by the action research method. Specifically, the procedure will entail the use of action and continuous evaluation and critical reflection. The emerging findings will offer the much-needed evidence to implement additional changes to help mitigate the problematic issue of drug abuse in learning institutions. To achieve this goal, the action research will guide the involved professionals to analyze the presented information by asking random questions to parents and students (Carlson et al., 2020). This approach will help the planners determine whether the beneficiaries have gained the required knowledge regarding the identified problem. Open-ended questionnaires could also be submitted to teachers since they will offer additional observations from the program.
The professionals will conduct a thorough investigation to evaluate and determine whether the beneficiaries have acquired new ideas on drugs and the best approaches to address emerging health issues. The recorded findings will guide these leaders to revise the program should some complaints or gaps emerge. The planners of the project will go further to use various research methods to learn more about students’ views about the entire process. Specifically, they will gauge the students’ willingness to avoid alcohol and illicit drugs while engaging in continuous learning. The emerging insights will inform a paradigm shift in the program based on the recorded observations (Bonomo, 2017). The ultimate aim is to promote lifelong learning while allowing more students, teachers, and parents to remain committed and willing to tackle this predicament. These action plans will eventually make the program beneficial and sustainable.
Conclusion
The completed discussion has identified drug abuse as one of the common problems affecting academic performance in different learning institutions. The introduction of an effective plan characterized by clearly defined roles and activities can help deliver the outlined objectives. The involvement of key stakeholders, such as teachers and parents, can support the introduced programs and make it sustainable. The proposed counseling program is, therefore, an actionable plan that can help educate students and parents about the identified problem, thereby encouraging them to engage in appropriate strategies to deal with the vice.
References
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