Pubdate: Sat, 03 Jun 2000 Source: Florida Times-Union (FL) Copyright: The Florida Times-Union 2000 Contact: http://www.times-union.com/ Forum: http://cafe.jacksonville.com/cafesociety.html Author: Jill Taylor UNF PROFESSOR'S DRUG PROGRAM HONORED The idea that parents play an important role in influencing their children's attitudes toward drug use has been the focus of Chudley Werch's research for some years. Last month, a substance abuse prevention program that the University of North Florida professor co-developed 12 years ago with Michael Young of the University of Arkansas received national honors. The program, Keep a Clear Mind, has been shown to increase communication between parents and children and give both groups a more realistic view of the consequences of drug use. The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Center for Substance Prevention (CSAP) in Washington, D.C., named Keep a Clear Mind a model program in its annual Exemplary Substance Abuse Prevention Program Awards for 1999. Keep a Clear Mind is a parent/child program for families with children in grades four through six. Students receive four short correspondence lessons about alcohol, tobacco and marijuana to take home, complete and discuss with their parents. Incentives are used to promote timely completion. "We were very excited to win the award," Werch said. "Our program is unique vs. other drug prevention programs in that it's brief and inexpensive." The program is being used by public and private organizations in Arkansas and Mississippi. The designation and government endorsement should provide nationwide publicity for it, Young said. Scientific testing was used to evaluate the model programs in accordance with criteria of CSAP's National Registry of Effective Prevention Programs. Keep a Clear Mind continuously held up to the tests and produced results, according to the evaluation. "Their thinking was, 'Look, here were some rigorously evaluated programs and Keep a Clear Mind has produced results, so we need to promote this,' " Young said. Ideally, Keep a Clear Mind will help develop communication between parent and child, Werch said. "It's appealing because it's low-cost, it doesn't interfere with other curriculum and it can be disseminated through sports and other organizations," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Allan Wilkinson