SECTION ON ADOLESCENTS
Director: Ken Winters, Ph.D.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Evaluation of the Children’s Program at the Betty Ford Center; Amelia Arria, PhD: TRI is helping evaluate short- and long-term outcomes of the program.
A Parent’s Guide to the Teen Brain: Ken Winters, Ph.D. Multi-media and science based, this parent product developed by the Partnership for a Drug Free America (Partnership) with science from TRI explains adolescent brain processes and gives tips for creating (or re-creating) the essential talking connection between parents and teens. Read announcement or view product.
Time to Act!: Amelia Arria, Ph.D. Another science-based product from the Partnership and TRI, Time to Act! is a web-based helping tool for parents who know or suspect their children are drinking or taking drugs. Read announcement or view product.
For Clinicians: Brief Intervention for Substance Abusing Adolescents: Ken Winters, Ph.D.
Multimedia training developed by TRI Senior Scientist Ken C. Winters, Ph.D. is a computer-delivered adaptation of the Brief Intervention (“BI”) workshop Winters developed based on research with mild drug-abusing adolescents and their parents. The CD-based workshop topics include a detailed description of the model along with general counseling skills and a focus on motivational enhancement strategies.
Breaking Intergenerational Cycles of Addiction: Parent-Focused Strategies: Amelia Arria, Ph.D. TRI collaborated with the Betty Ford Institute to host its latest Critical Issues conference September 2010: "Breaking Intergenerational Cycles of Addiction: Parent-focused Strategies.". The Conference convened drug treatment providers, policy makers,researchers and others to explore reasons for the relative lack of parent education about parent–child relationship skills during chemical dependency treatment. Recommendations for next steps are being generated by Conference officials.
Internet Availability of Drugs of Abuse: Amelia Arria,, Ph.D. and David Festinger, Ph.D.
This study is obtaining information directly from adolescents enrolled in drug treatment programs about their use of the Internet to purchase prescription drugs for non-medical use. A user-friendly web-based assessment is being administered to a large sample of adolescents (ages 12 - 17) to gather information on demographic characteristics, non-medical and illicit drug use and related problems, and experiences related to using the Internet to learn information about drugs as well as purchase analgesics, tranquilizers, sedatives and stimulants for non-medical use. Findings may lead to more detailed studies of adolescents in representative samples of treatment programs and in schools and colleges, potentially used to help adolescents and serve as the foundation for crafting policies and legislation to reduce the marketing and sale of prescription drugs without a prescription. The long-term goal of the research is to reduce the physical health problems and social consequences associated with the non-medical use of prescription drugs that have a risk for addiction.
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