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

When Family Problems Reach the Workplace... Employers Pay the Cost

NCJ Number
188445
Date Published
July 2001
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This paper presents the rationale for employers to offer juvenile drug prevention materials to employees who are parents and suggests ways this can be done.
Abstract
National data on illicit drug use by children and teens are sufficiently alarming to indicate a significant percentage of employees will have children and teens who are involved with drugs. When surveyed, 99 percent of human resource professionals indicated they believe employees who have children with substance abuse problems are more likely to experience decreased morale and productivity and use an increasing amount of health-care dollars. Data and the opinions by experts in the field of personnel management suggest that all employers, regardless of the size of their businesses, should provide drug prevention materials to parents who are their employees. Distribution of free resources can help reduce absenteeism and health-care costs while increasing productivity. Some suggestions for providing drug prevention materials to parent-employees are to download a drug prevention article for the company's online or offline publication; order free antidrug posters for the lunchroom or break room; subscribe to and share e-mail parenting tips with employees; distribute free parenting brochures to all employees; invite drug experts from a local antidrug coalition to speak at the workplace; and access free resources at www.TheAntiDrug.com/Workplace.