School‐based prevention: current status and future challenges

Abstract

The field of school‐based prevention of behavioral problems and promotion of caring and competence has grown dramatically in the past decade. This article provides a brief summary of current progress in the field and a discussion of future challenges and directions in research and practice. The article presents four future directions for research in the field of school‐based prevention and health promotion: building the science of implementation and sustainability, building greater integration between educational policy and prevention, understanding factors influencing program integration with ongoing programming in schools, and the continued development and refinement of new programs and models. These future directions are driven by two significant research‐to‐service challenges faced both by practitioners and researchers that involve systems integration across developmental stages and levels of care. There is little question that further advances in the development and application of effective prevention practices and policies with schools and communities will require a much greater degree of collaboration in which researchers learn from educators and vice versa. A central part of this collaboration includes greater attention to the important role that prevention programs and policies can play in both increasing academic performance and resilience, and improving the quality of life of communities.

Keywords:

• prevention
• social‐emotional learning
• social development
• curricula
• social competence

Acknowledgements

Work on this article was supported by research grants DA13709 from the National Institute of Drug Abuse. The author gratefully acknowledges the valuable comments of Roger Weissberg, Mary Utne O’Brien, Michael Little, and Richard Spoth.