Children who are subject to negative or bad environments are more prone to engaging in drugs and alcohol. There are many programs that bring awareness and prevention to alcohol and drugs. The South Carolina Afterschool Alliance program provides groups and organizations with an effective after-school program plan. The after-school programs are essential in promoting awareness and prevention of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, abstinence, and violence to young children or adolescents.
The South Carolina Afterschool Alliance program strives to reach the community and explain the importance of after-school programs. They provide information and guidelines to organizations and groups on how to have effective after-school programs. The program provides activities and lesson plans to engage children by having fun and learning at the same time. Making after-school activities different from school lessons determines the effectiveness of the programs. . The overall goal of the South Carolina Afterschool Alliance is to establish a statewide network of diverse stakeholders that will guide, support, and enable quality after school services and policies for all children and youth (ASCAA, 1969). Guide and support are the two main effective tools keeping children involved in after-school programs instead of drugs or gangs.
Children who are subject to walking home alone or staying at home by themselves in bad drug invested neighborhoods endure more influences to drug use than suburban areas. Typically, poverty stricken homes are in social environments where drugs and violence are frequent. Mooney, Knox, & Schacht (2011) write, “Drugs are a social problem not only because of their adverse effects on individuals but also because of the negat...
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...ren go home to an empty lonely home with no food. For some children after-school programs are all the hope they have. It only takes one person to influence change on a child’s life.
Works cited:
Benavente, J. (2006). After school activities can change a child’s life. Colorado State University Extension. Family and Consumer Science, Adams County
(1pg). Retrieved from:
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/columncc/cc060905.html
Mooney, L., Knox, D., & Schacht, C. (2011). Understanding Social Problems.
Wadsworth Cengage Learning. 8-16.
Web resources:
ASCAA. (1969). South Carolina After School Alliance. Retrieved from:
http://www.scafterschool.com/index.php?pageid=3
Learning Point Associates, Top Five Reasons Afterschool Programs Are on the
Rise. (1pp). Retrieved from:
http://www.learningpt.org/pdfs/afterschool/TopFiveReasons.pdf
Drugs are not only a problem for older generations, but often times those in younger generations become involved in the drug trade as well. According to Anderson (1990), “Children who become deeply engaged in t...
Measures of prevention or intervention that can be taken include creating early prevention programs, collaboration between the school, police, and parents, and policy measures. Programs that focus on increasing positive interactions with peers and encourage self esteem can help deter a child from a lifestyle susceptible to gang recruiting later in life (Simon, Ritter, and Mahendra, 2013). Such programs are vital in the school environment, where a youth spends most of his/her day. Schools must take note of the common signs of a youth with a high risk of becoming a gang member, for instance, poor grades and performance, and social rejection in the form of being bullied or being the bully. Moreover, schools should offer programs that raise awareness
"Catching Them Early" profiles the extraordinary efforts of Richmond's Lincoln Elementary School to ensure a bright future for its children. Ninety-nine percent of the kids attending Lincoln qualify for federal meal subsidies; many have family members in a gang. So the school makes special efforts, including the hiring of outreach workers, to provide the kind of support kids need to stay in class and do well.
Correspondingly, these poor urban neighborhoods can lead to less effective parenting due to the stress and struggles they are facing, which may cause adolescents to develop delinquent behaviors. Due to the high crime rates in such neighborhood, adolescents are more likely to be exposed to deviant peer groups and gang behaviors, and these may result in a stronger deviant peer effect on the adolescents. (Deutsch, 2012)
Many environmental factors contribute to a person’s proneness to substance abuse. These factors include but are not limited to stress, early physical or sexual abuse, witnessing violence, peers who use drugs, and drug availability. (Addiction Science) The desire to be accepted within a particular group often creates an enormous amount of stress in teens. This stress and feeling of alienation is a driving force towards drug use. Research has shown that, “Another important environmental factor is the amount and quality of emotional and social support a person receives. Teens who reported having an adult they trusted and could talk to, for example, have a lower risk of addiction than those who don’t.”(Environmental Factors) An impoverished environment increases the likelihood of substance abuse and addiction as well. Those who are apart of a lifestyle of poverty often experience incarceration and dropping out of school. Those who drop out of school, are unemployed or live in unsafe areas are at “higher risk, especially if their home environment has already exposed them to dru...
As children, we look to our parents to teach us skills that we need in everyday life, whether it be social skills or how to. Yet for a variety of reasons, some children do not have this personal role model for them to follow and learn from. For these children, their teachers may be the first adult to give them any sort of attention or care. As a result, a teacher can play a huge impact in a young child’s life. The Allentown School District’s high schools are both considered Title I schools, meaning that over 40% of the school’s students come from families that are legally considered low-income (www2.ed.gov). In the ASD, this number is nearly doubled at 88.7% (www.allentownsd.org). Most likely, these students come from homes in which the adults they live with are working most of the day and
Rural children have had higher poverty rates for decades. In 1970, the poverty rate was 20 percent for rural children compared with 12 percent for urban children. Although the gap narrowed in the 1970s and 1980s, the rates have diverged since the early 1990’s. The rise of child poverty in rural America is consistent with the growing income gap between urban and rural families over this same period (Bilsborrow, 1987). These poor communities also tend to struggle with easily obtained drugs such as methamphetamine and crack cocaine. Substance abuse can be especially hard to combat in rural communities due to limited resources for prevention, treatment, and recovery. Substance abuse results in increased illegal activities, as well as physical and social health consequences, such as poor academic performance, poorer health status, changes in brain structure, and increased risk of death from overdose and suicide (The Association for Better Living and Education International, 2009). When asked about how the use of drugs corresponds with living in a poor community, I found that drugs have impacted the life of all three of these citizens. The first person I interviewed made note that two of her sons overdosed on crack cocaine. She blames this on the lifestyle that comes with growing up in such a poor community. Although she educated her children of the dangers of drugs they fell into peer pressure when they dropped out of
Similarly the background of the people who become involved in drug usage which could result in crime are predisposed to drug related behavior early on in their households (Winfree et. Al., 1993). It is interesting to see how drug usage can affect people early in their life’s because one could assume that their drug usage would get higher later on. These people are likely to be molded into a lifestyle that involves heavy drug usage and result in committed crimes.
Drugs cause an overall disturbance in a subjects’ physiological, psychological and emotional health. “At the individual level, drug abuse creates health hazards for the user, affecting the educational and general development of youths in particular” (“Fresh Challenge”). In youth specifically, drug abuse can be triggered by factors such as: a parent’s abusive behavior, poor social skills, family history of alcoholism or substance abuse, the divorce of parents or guardians, poverty, the death of a loved one, or even because they are being bullied at school (“Drugs, brains, and behavior”) .
In general, poverty is dominantly in inner-city neighborhoods. The isolation of poverty driven cities causes lower employment rate and diminishing government services such as school systems, health care, and police protection. The consequence of this is destructive environmental pressures such as violence, drug use, and gang affiliation (McLoyd, 1998). Poverty is more prevalent in African Americans and Latinos rather than white people. This correlates with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Association statistic that states African American drug use in ages 12 and up is 12.4% and 8.9% in the Latino community compared the 10.2% national average (SAMHSA, 2014). McLoyd’s childhood poverty graph shows that children under the age of five
There are many types of drug prevention programs across the United States and many of them focus on school-aged children. The basis of this focus is the belief that this is the portion of society that can be influenced the most in education and prevention of drug use. Many school- aged children view drugs as a big problem in the United States, according to surveys that have been conducted. The majority of parents however are unaware of the current drug trends and many do not discuss drugs with their children. In this report I will be discussing some of the drug prevention programs that are currently in effect and look at one of the past drug prevention programs that was a success.
The decline in casual drugs use may be unrelated to the war on drugs. Furthermore, stressors at a macro level such as economic deprivation, inequality, structural discrimination, and other pervasive stressors in the environment may serve as risk factors for drug use. Also family and peer influence is a strong correlate of drug use. The widespread prevalence of use of marijuana among youth, continues to generate a moral panic, even though evidence states that marijuana usage causes few significant health or behavioral problems to vast majority of the people who consume
Two-thirds of children who participate in extracurricular activities are expected to attain at least a bachelor’s degree, whereas only half of children that do not participate do (National Center for Education Statistics, 1995). Childhood is a very important time in our lives, a time when we develop many vital skills that follow us into adulthood. Some people laugh or scoff at us parents that keep our children to busy schedules. Those same people would also argue that our children should be allowed to have a childhood, to not be so tightly scheduled in their daily lives. Before jumping on that bandwagon, I would suggest doing a little research. Participating in after-school activities has shown to benefit children in many ways. Children should
... Disa Cornish, Melvin Gonnerman, and Margaret Ralston. "Impact of Participation in High School Extracuricular Activities on Early Life Experiences: A Study of Iowa Graduates." University of Northern Iowa (2009): 36. Web. 10 Mar 2014.
Rizzolo, Allison. "PUBLICAGENDA.ORG - Survey: Sports, Arts, Clubs, Volunteering -- Out-of-School Activities Play Crucial, Positive Role for Kids." Survey: Sports, Arts, Clubs, Volunteering -- Out-of-School Activities Play Crucial, Positive Role for Kids. Public Agenda, 16 Nov. 2004. Web. 5 Mar. 2014