Can Parents Provide Brief Intervention Services to Their Drug-Abusing Teenager?

Abstract

The importance of parents as “interventionists” is supported by reviews of the treatment literature (e.g., Smit, Verdurmen, Monshouwer, & Smit, 2008; Winters, Botzet, Fahnhorst, & Koskey, 2009) as well as the emerging science that home-based initiatives by parents can contribute to desired health changes in adolescents (Fearnow, Chassin, Presson, & Sherman, 1998; Jackson & Dickinson, 2006). Parental influences on an adolescent can include reducing initiation, as well as altering its maintenance if it has started. This article describes a project aimed at helping parents to deal with a teenager who has already started to use alcohol or other drugs. Home Base is a home-based, parent-led program aimed at reversing the trajectory of drug use in an already drug-using adolescent. The program’s content is organized around motivational enhancement and cognitive behavioral techniques. The ongoing study is also discussed.

Keywords:

• adolescent drug abuse
• intervention
• parenting