Friday, November 12, 2004

Nov. 12, 2004

NOTE TO MEDIA: The last meeting this semester of the Ashley ninth grade peer educators takes place at 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 17 if you wish to photograph the group in action.

Wilmington, N.C. – A pilot project involving the University of North Carolina Wilmington and Ashley and Hoggard high schools is in the first phase of developing an effective drug education curriculum that can be used around the country.

CROSSROADS, UNCW’s substance abuse prevention and education program, is a partner in a $100,000 drug and alcohol prevention project in high schools. Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an agency of the National Institutes of Health, the project replicates and advances three years of previous CROSSROADS work with the New Hanover County schools. This program is a blend of the power of peer education and technology to delay and reduce substance use in high school students.

Phase I of CROSSROADS: High School Drug Prevention, which began in May 2004, is a randomized trial of the program in New Hanover County high schools. This phase includes UNCW students mentoring ninth grade peer educators at Ashley and Hoggard high schools, which has been underway since August. There, ninth grade peer educators are helping health teachers facilitate classroom sessions and conduct awareness activities for all ninth graders. These dynamic, interactive sessions focus on key aspects of preventing drug abuse such as making good decisions, resisting peer pressure and understanding the effects of drug and alcohol abuse.

The next phase of CROSSROADS: High School Drug Prevention will support the final development of the program and a national multi-site trial to demonstrate results in a variety of high school environments. In this next phase, college students from UNCW will mentor high school peer educators around the country via the Internet on how to provide a drug education curriculum for ninth-grade health students. The ultimate goal of CROSSROADS: High School Drug Prevention is to develop an effective drug education curriculum for high school students that can be used around the country.