PILOTING THE PROGRAMME SKILLS FOR ADOLESCENCE PILOTING THE PROGRAMME LIONS QUEST SKILLS FOR ADOLESCENCE PILOTING A SCHOOL-BASED PREVENTION PROGRAM IN SOUTH EAST EUROPE: RESULTS FROM A LIONS QUEST – UNODC COLLABORATION" VIENNA, 18.MARCH ZORA DEŠIĆ, MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

UNODC Drug Prevention and Health Branch Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation Section and UNODC Regional Programme for South East Europe LIONS QUEST - SKILLS FOR ADOLESCENCE IMPLEMENTED WITH: - Focused on teaching social and emotional competencies, especially targeting risk factors and drug use prevention - Targets 6 th thru 9 th grade students - Universal curriculum – 40 sessions - Rigorously evaluated thru standard Monitoring & Evaluation component

- After selection of schools and educators, we started training: - 5 training cycles - Aug to Oct educators per training - Total of 75 educators trained - Educators were selected among teachers and school counsels from selected schools TRAINING

IMPLEMENTATION  School sessions  Implementation period Sep 2014 to Jun session implementation modality - Initially implemented in 21 schools in Belgrade - 4 schools were dropped due to no or very low test results (post test response rate was below 20%) - 17 schools were retained (response rate was 92.3%)

MONITORING AND EVALUATION o Follow up sessions o Educator weekly reports o Pre/post test o Evaluation o Cultural adaptation material

PRE-TEST/POST-TEST RESULTS Significant improvement in refusal skills of students Change in perception of harm - significant improvement in perception of harm of alcohol Certain change in intention to use – No statistically significant changes were found regarding the intention to use any of the three substances. However, the majority of students were resolute not to use any of the three substances pre-and post-test. Minor change in normative belief – There was no significant change pre-and post-test (but there was a tendency of positive change in this normative belief among girls only, for all substances).

BACKGROUND Programme implementation was facilitated by: - Reputation developed by UNODC organization - Good experiences with implementation of programme “Strengthening Family 10-14”, - Programme relates to our educational needs - Programme covers sensitive population/age

BACKGROUND Legal basis for programme implementation exists because : Prevention of drug use is a part of regular elementary school curriculum in Nature and Society, Biology, Chemistry and in extracurricular activities. Prevention of drug abuse is already part of school prevention programmes MoE also performs accreditation of programmes for drug prevention for in-service training for teachers Teachers have a legal obligation to attend professional development programmes (minimum 100 hours over 5 years) and also to apply lessons learned

FOLLOW UP o Extend programme to other schools and cities o Continue cooperation with local communities (they are legally required to support professional development and ensure safety of students) o Ensure better promotion of programme by: o Making programmes “SF 10-14” and Lions Quest “Skills for Adolescence” a part of national drug prevention action plan o Including both programmes in official database of drug prevention programmes maintained by health department

IT IS EASIER WITH SUPPORT