1. The Indiana Youth Survey
Insert Your Name, Title and Organization
This presentation is intended for providers to use to inform school/district administrators about the INYS and encourage participation. We recommend to bring along INYS recruitment materials to provide to your audience (school administrators). Providers should be very knowledgeable about the INYS prior to delivering this presentation, review the information on the INYS website, and anticipate questions and responses from the audience. Please contact the IPRC if you have any questions before the presentation!
Insert your name, title and organization on this slide to represent that you are presenting this information

2. Why is Prevention Important?
Adolescent substance use and other emotional and health issues are related to negative school outcomes:
Absenteeism and tardiness
Poor academic performance
Lack of motivation
Interpersonal violence
It is important to help school administrators see the connections between substance use, the school environment and student performance. Schools need to know how prevention can improve the school environment and benefit student performance.

3. Why is Data Important?
Research shows that cost-effective youth prevention strategies should be based on local, current data from youth.
The INYS provides results to school corporations about what their students are doing and thinking about substance use and other health related issues.
Data gathered through the INYS can be used to guide planning for effective prevention strategies to ultimately improve academic performance and promote healthy behaviors.
Data gathered from the INYS can be used to enhance grant proposals and can help with grant reporting.
Schools want to know how the data will help THEM. If you can add other specific ways that schools will be able to utilize the data (aside from assisting you in your efforts), then you should include those ideas. One suggestion is that the data can also be used by schools to enhance their grant proposals and possibly for current grant reporting purposes.

4. What is the INYS?
The Indiana Youth Survey (INYS) is a self‐reported adolescent survey administered in Indiana schools and is funded by the Division of Mental Health and Addiction.
The survey asks students questions about their…
Alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use
Mental health
Individual beliefs about drug use and antisocial behavior
Family, peers, school, and community environment
Gambling behaviors
The Division of Mental Health and Addiction is part of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration. The survey is funded through federal block grants.
*4. Assesses risk and protective factors for substance use and antisocial behavior in these areas

5. What is the INYS?
All public and private schools in Indiana are welcome to participate.
Survey can be administered to grades 6-12.
Survey can be administered from January through April.
Survey can be administered in 30 minutes.
Survey is available in a paper or online format.
Survey is completely FREE!

6. Sample Questions
How many times in the past month (30 days) have you used _______?
At what age did you first use ______?
How wrong do your friends feel it would be for you to______?
Also asks questions about:
Beliefs, perceptions, and consequences
School, community, and home environments
Mental health
Gambling
Survey covers:
1. National Outcome Measures
Thirty day prevalence of use
Perceived risk of harm
Age of first use
Perception of peer disapproval
2. Communities that Care factors*
Factors: Protective and risk
Domains: Community, family, school, and peer-individual
Examples: Peer commitment to school, opportunities for involvement in school and family, etc.
*The IPRC introduced the Communities That Care (CTC) survey items in the 2010 survey for the first time.
Communities That Care is a coalition-based prevention operating system that uses a public health approach to prevent youth problem behaviors such as violence, school drop-out, and substance abuse. Using training and research-based tools, CTC is designed to help community stakeholders and decision makers understand and apply information about risk and protective factors, and programs that are proven to make a difference in promoting healthy youth development, in order to most effectively address the specific issues facing their community’s youth.

7. INYS Participation Year Students 2013 117,554 2014 119,147 2015
111,585
2016
107,801
All public and private schools in Indiana that serve grades 6th through 12th are invited to participate in the survey each year.
Over 100,000 students have participated in the Indiana Youth Survey in 2016.
For the 2016 survey, the participation rates were 19.4% by students, 28.0% by schools, and 39.7% by school corporations.
Students
Schools
Corporations
Participants
107,801
398
147
Total Population
556,252
1,421
370
Participation Rate
19.4
28.0
39.7

8. School Sampling Plan
The strength of INYS is its ability to describe reported alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use at the state AND local levels.
Up to this point, the INYS has used convenience sampling, or recruiting voluntary participants wherever is convenient.
The biggest disadvantages of convenience sampling are sampling bias and the risk that the sample is not representative of the entire population.

9. North Central Region (2)
School Sampling Plan
The INYS uses stratified random sampling
techniques every other year (2016, 2018,
2020, etc.) to gather a random sample of
Indiana schools.
INYS data are sampled by Indiana
Family and Social Services
Administration (FSSA)’s eight regions,
as seen in the map to the right.
West Region (4)
East Region (6)
Central Region (5)
Northwest Region (1)
Northeast Region (3)
Southeast Region (8)
North Central Region (2)
Southwest Region (7)

10. School Sampling Plan
This sampling strategy may result in representative and more accurate data on the statewide level.
For the random sample, only public schools are selected.
It is important to have a good response rate for generating reliable and valid state-level data so we strongly encourage the selected schools to participate in the INYS.

11. School Sampling Plan
Schools not chosen in the random sample are still welcome to participate in the even years (2016, 2018, etc.).
The INYS still uses convenience sampling on the odd years (2017, 2019, etc.), and any school may participate.

12. Timeline Invitation letters are sent to schools
Registration closes for online surveys
Registration closes for paper surveys
Receive report of survey results from the IPRC
January 31
August 15
January 15 through April 15
*Survey materials are shipped two weeks before survey administration date.
December 1
August 31
Registration opens
Choose dates to administer the survey and return them to the IPRC

13. Registration Survey registration opens on August 15.
Schools and school corporations can register online at
After registering, you will receive a confirmation explaining the next steps.
When presenting, remind them to tell schools that each school corporation must designate ONE local survey coordinator to oversee the survey process at all schools.

14. What do schools get?
Before survey administration, schools will receive:
For paper surveys: Paper surveys, envelopes, and paid
return shipping labels
For both paper and online surveys: Administration
guidelines, including a video

15. What do schools get?
Instructions on adding up to 15 additional survey questions based on your school corporation’s particular interests (optional)
IPRC provides a document of over 100 potential additional questions as a resource for schools.
School can also make up their own questions.

16. What do schools get? After administering the survey, schools will get…
Free report detailing the survey results for the students of your school corporation
Publicly available statewide data for comparison
Trend data for schools that participate over multiple years
Free training on how to interpret data and results
The option of purchasing individual school reports at a small additional cost
We provide each individual school corporation a report- it’s a large report, approximately 80 pages that details the results of your school corporation and comparisons to regional, state and national data. The report provides information on statewide prevalence of use by race/ethnicity, gender, and region. Also, the reports provide data on age of first use, CTC risk and protective factors, source of alcohol and prescription drugs, mental health, perceived risk of harm, and gambling behaviors.

17. Student Participation
Student participation is voluntary.
Follow school policy regarding parental consent for student surveys.

18. Confidentiality
Participation is confidential for students and for schools.
Corporation survey results are only released to the participating school corporation.
All results will remain confidential unless your school corporation provides written permission for the results to be released to a third party.
Confidentiality: It’s important for students to be comfortable with and understand that the survey is confidential and that their responses cannot and will not be traced back to a particular youth. Stressing confidentiality and following the recommended classroom survey administration procedures are the keys to maximizing truthful reporting. Make sure students know that the data collected is for the IPRC and DMHA to understand general student trends across the state – it is not a way for schools to “spy” on them.
The following people will NOT see a school’s survey results:
Parents of participants
The governor of Indiana
Your city mayor
Anyone who inquires at the IPRC
IPRC staff not related to the Indiana Youth Survey
County-level data are not released (only state- or regional-level)

19. Validity The INYS produces valid results.
Items come from validated national surveys:
Monitoring the Future Study (MTF)
Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS)
National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)
Communities that Care (CTC)
Validity defined: The extent to which a survey measures what it is intended to measure.

20. Believability of Results
Surveys are eliminated if:
Majority of the items missing
Gender information missing
Grade information missing
Implausible combination of age and grade
Inconsistent responses
Pharmacologically implausible responses
Use of fictitious drug
Student indicated they did not answer survey truthfully
There is a protocol for checking errors to eliminate unreliable responses.
A survey with any one of the following will not be included in the data analysis.
Information missing for majority of the items - throw it out.
If gender or grade information is missing, we throw that individual survey out.
Combination of age and grade was implausible. For instance, an eleven-year-old in the 12th grade.
Inconsistent responses on substance use across time measures (monthly vs. lifetime) for more than one-third of the substances asked.
Patterns of responses were pharmacologically implausible. For instance, a combination of drugs and frequencies of use whose cumulative effect would be lethal.
Use of fictitious drug.
In the last item of the survey, respondent indicated that he or she did not respond truthfully at all.

21. Benefits of Participating
Each participating school corporation will receive their own results for FREE.
Report will cover all survey items and includes state comparisons for selected items.
Schools can measure progress over time (when implemented over multiple years).
The results can be useful for grant reporting purposes and to help leverage additional funding.
The results can be useful for a variety of school and community policy and planning efforts.

22. How Can We Use the Results?
To understand your student body
To inform school policies
To select prevention programs or curricula
To collaborate with community prevention efforts
To succeed in grant-seeking

23. An Intervention Example
The data can be also used when planning an intervention program. In this case, it is important to note where increases or decreases occur.
This is a graph depicting monthly use of marijuana. You can see large increases between 7th and 8th grades, 8th and 9th grades, and 9th and 10th grades. You may provide interventions for 7th, 8th, and 9th graders before these increases occur.

24. Advantages of Using INYS
Free
Flexible
Convenient
Customizable
Confidential
Valuable
Believable

25. Questions?

26. For More Information… Insert your name, organization
Insert your address
Insert your phone number
INYS website:
Address:
INYS Coordinator: Susan Samuel
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INYS
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