Understanding Drug Prevention and Support

Running head: UNDERSTANDING DRUG PREVENTION AND SUPPORT
UNDERSTANDING DRUG PREVENTION AND SUPPORT
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1UNDERSTANDING DRUG PREVENTION AND SUPPORT
Introduction
Besides physiological diseases, mental disorders and several financial and environmental
concerns, substance abuse has c=become one of the most crucial challenge for the world
population now-a-days. As per the World Health Organisation (2019), more than 3.3 million
people die of severe substance abuse and majority of the drug consumers around the world
belong to teenage or adolescent group as they consume 6.2 litre of pure alcohol every year
(World Health Organisation). Further the statistics also mentioned that throughout the world
more than 31 million people have drug related disorder as well as 11 million cases of drug
injections were registered within which majority of them suffered from HIV, hepatitis and other
critical viral disorders (World Health Organisation 2019). However, the primal concern of the
entire world in growing substance abuse among school children or adolescents which are
affecting their growth and developmental phase (Milkman 2016).
School based drug prevention is the most accurate drug prevention method which is
utilized by governmental and non-governmental organisations so that teenagers and adolescents
affected with drug abuse conditions could be provided with interventions (Van Ouytsel et al.
2017). These interventions are educational, skill based and social influencers so that existing
cultural and social belief associated with drug and its consumption could be modified and
prevented (Winters et al. 2018). This is an important preventive strategy as majority of the
people affected with substance abuse thinks a specific section of drugs are ‘normal’ and
consumption of them is safe than alcohol or smoking (Milkman 2016).
Therefore, the objectives of this structured essay is to critically discuss different theories
that influences drug prevention and education for school based or adolescent people as well as

2UNDERSTANDING DRUG PREVENTION AND SUPPORT
understanding the challenges in educating these approach to addicted adolescents. Further,
theoretical model of prevention, model of education, principle of adult and community
education, emergence of prevention and education in national and international settings and
current prevention and education provisions within formal and non-formal settings would be
provided in this assignment. Finally, a brief overview of theoretical models of family support in
a drug and alcohol and drug education and prevention guidelines would be provided in this
paper.
Theoretical model of prevention
There are several theoretical programs develop and utilized by governmental and non-
governmental organizations so that application of these could help the adolescents and teenagers
affected with substance abuse to overcome their addictive habit. As per Vadrucci et al. (2016),
the theoretical model which was used for the substance abuse in teenagers, was named as
‘Unplugged’ which was one of the school based program developed by European researchers
and was tested in the EUDAP (European Drug Addiction Prevention). Using this theoretical
model different aspect of substance abuse such as problematic behavior, social norms regarding
drug abuse, modifying the health belief and action and resulting attitude of school based
teenagers were targeted (Vadrucci et al. 2016). It was seen that application of this theory on the
drug abused European community helped to reduce the use of cannabis, drunken episodes and
smoking habit among adolescents effectively. The model was applied in 12 sessions, one hour
each and through several games, presentations, play, group work, discussion, quiz and feedback
sessions, engaged them in the sessions for prevention of drug abuse (Vadrucci et al. 2016).

3UNDERSTANDING DRUG PREVENTION AND SUPPORT
Another paper by Sigfúsdóttir et al. (2008), mentioned a theoretical approach namely the
Icelandic model of prevention, which also targeted the adolescent substance abusers. This
theoretical model was created by policy maker’s behavioral scientists and the community
residents, and they collaborated with the field based practitioners. The primary aim of this
theoretical model was empowering the parents, school and community protective factors so that
with their help and collaboration, risk factors associated with substance abuse could be reduced
(Sigfúsdóttir et al. 2008). Further, while determining the effectiveness of this theoretical model
for substance abuse prevention, it was seen that this theory was able to make positive changes in
the adolescent substance abusers and prevented their consumption (Sigfúsdóttir et al. 2008).
However, while formulating new preventive programs for the prevention and controlling of
substance abuse interventions, it is not easy to formulate the program and hence predicting their
effectiveness could provide superficial and inaccurate results, hence while analyzing these
models mentioned above, their application was noticed (Sigfúsdóttir et al. 2008).
Theoretical Models of Education including Adult and Community Education
Community is a place where people are able to behave and act as their own self without
pretending or mocking any exterior behavior (Kraus and Nociar 2016). It was seen through
researches that community education is the tool which should by governmental and non-
governmental organizations that try to make difference in the society by changing the typical
thinking, orthodox behavior. Community education helps to provide educational sessions to the
people, who share common ideas, beliefs and needs and hence through educational session, the
entire community is provided with effective learning action and reflection opportunity
(O’Gorman 2016). The theoretical model which could be used by public health workers for the
education related to drug abuse among teenagers and adolescent individuals are youth and