The Youth Video Project: An Innovative Program for Substance Abuse Prevention

ABSTRACT

This article describes an innovative drug prevention pilot in which developing a substance abuse video served as a vehicle for teaching youth healthy attitudes and behaviors. Seven 10- to 12-year-old African Americans from a public housing development participated in 10 weekly sessions focusing on video skills and substance abuse. Based on the principles of capacity building and cognitive dissonance theory, the children learned about substance abuse in their community and movie-making, which they used to created an antidrug video. Six activities were identified as critical to the program's success: family involvement, community engagement, adapting drug education content to fit community characteristics, using the camcorder as a central vehicle for learning, community field assignments, and evaluation-based learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Community-based programs
• empowerment
• substance abuse prevention
• youth
• service programs
• pilot study

This project was funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Tulane-Xavier Campus Affiliates Program (DU100A070196000). The authors would like to thank Rebecca Kendig, Keith Hudson, Debbie Holmes, Octavia Christy, Maggie Motten, Darlene Poole, and particularly Larry Hurst for their assistance and support of this project.

Notes

1. All risk factors were measured by single items using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. An endorsement was indicated by a score higher than 3 (neither agree nor disagree). For example, low parental monitoring of child is a high-risk situation and was measured by the following item: “The person(s) who raised me keeps a close watch over me.”