U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Refusal Skills: Preventing Drug Use in Adolescents

NCJ Number
128486
Author(s)
A P Goldstein; K W Reagles; L L Amann
Date Published
1990
Length
166 pages
Annotation
This text explains how to teach adolescents 20 prosocial skills and refusal skills needed to avoid drug abuse and related problems based on research showing the importance of refusal skills in resisting pressure to use illicit drugs.
Abstract
The authors developed the psychological skills training method which is called "Skillstreaming." It involves a curriculum of specific skills and an instructional approach based on modeling, role playing, performances feedback, and transfer training. Skills taught include asking for help, convincing others, knowing and expressing feelings, dealing with fear, responding to teasing, dealing with embarrassment, responding to persuasion, and responding to failure. The manual presents the behavioral steps involved in each skill, step-by-step instructions for use by the trainer, class exercises, and examples of modeling displays. Checklists, appended discussion of the effects of specific drugs, author and subject indexes, and 170 references