An Alcohol and Drug Intervention With Old Order Amish Youth: Preliminary Results of Culturally Segregated Class Participation

Abstract

The authors developed a psychoeducational alcohol and drug program for Old Order Amish youth. Participants ranged in age from 16 to 20 years old. All were referred following arrest for a variety of predominantly alcohol-related offenses. The model was designed with input from the Old Order Amish community in response to concerns about existing programs that integrated Amish and non-Amish youth. Increased awareness of the effects of alcohol and drugs and the ability to resist social encouragement to use these substances were goals for the intervention. Preliminary results with 185 participants indicated that Amish youth increased factual knowledge about substances they considered culturally acceptable with moderate increases in comfort with choices. The article discusses the clinical and cultural implications of these findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Amish
• adolescents
• substance use
• culture

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Joe Wittmer in the development of the assessment measure and the work of Seth Gibson in the preparation of this article.

No effort with the Amish achieves even a moderate level of success without the support of members of the Amish community itself. Because of their humility, they prefer to remain anonymous, and we reluctantly comply.