Preventing Drug Abuse in American Indian Children

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): American Indian youth experience extraordinary vulnerability to substance use disorders, demonstrating early onset use and abuse as well as unusually severe life consequences associated with use. Despite this, there is a virtual absence of controlled investigations of preventive interventions within this population. The current proposal represents a community-research collaboration between Oregon Research Institute (ORI) and Indian Child and Family Services (ICFS) aimed at evaluating the acceptability and effectiveness of a culturally enhanced parenting program for reducing parenting and child risk factors for substance abuse in American Indian families. As well, the proposal will examine a culturally specific model of risk factors for parenting difficulties and child conduct problems. The Incredible Years series was chosen as the basis for cultural enhancement for American Indians because, in addition to its demonstrated effectiveness, it is generalizable in both content and process across cultures. The clinical staff at ICFS has been engaged in a process of culturally enhancing the program and, in collaboration with the ORI investigators, piloting the enhanced program to render it uniquely consonant with American Indian values. Participants for the current study will be 120 4-8 year old American Indian children and their parents or permanent guardians. Families will be self-referred subsequent to an intensive and broad-based campaign to alert communities to the project. Participants will be randomly assigned to either the Incredible Years Series or facilitated usual care. Acceptability and effectiveness will be evaluated with a multi-method, multi-agent assessment of child and parent functioning conducted at pre-and post-intervention and 6 month follow-up.