Download - Strategies for involving parents of high-risk youth in drug prevention: A three-year longitudinal study in boys & girls clubs

STRATEGIES FOR INVOLVINGPARENTS OF HIGH-RISK YOUTHIN DRUG PREVENTION:A THREE-YEAR LONGITUDINALSTUDY IN BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS

Tena L. St. Pierre and D. Lynne KaltreiderPennsylvania State University, University Park

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Involving parents of high-risk youth in community-based interventionprograms is extremely challenging. This article presents six groups ofstrategies for recruiting and retaining parents of high-risk youth in a parentinvolvement program called the Family Advocacy Network (FAN Club). TheFAN Club program accompanied a drug prevention program for the parents’early adolescent children who were members of Boys & Girls Clubs. Strategiespresented are based on a longitudinal study that found positive programeffects for youth in Boys & Girls Clubs that offered the FAN Club with thethree-year youth drug prevention program and monthly youth activities.Strategies are: (1) identify the right person to lead the program; (2) clearlyconvey the purpose of the program; (3) build relationships of mutual trust,respect, and equality; (4) create parent ownership and group bonding;(5) provide easy access, incentives, and reminders; and (6) be flexible butpersistent. q 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The government’s latest National Household Survey on Drug Abuse indicated that theuse of drugs, particularly marijuana, among our nation’s youth has increased dramati-

A R T I C L E

JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 25, No. 5, 473–485 (1997)© 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0090-4392/97/050473-13

Tena L. St. Pierre is an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Extension Education, andSenior Research Associate at the Institute for Policy Research and Evaluation, The Pennsylvania State Univer-sity, University Park, PA 16802. D. Lynne Kaltreider is a research associate at the Institute for Policy Researchand Evaluation, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802.This research was funded by a grant from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, Substance Abuse andMental Health Services Administration, Public Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services,Grant No. 1H86SPO1383.Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to Tena L. St. Pierre, N253 Burrowes Building, ThePennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802.

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cally (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 1996). These find-ings have led communities across the United States to refocus their attention on the “Waron Drugs” and the need for effective strategies that prevent young people from startingto use drugs.

The upsurge of teen drug use clearly calls for the development and evaluation of in-novative prevention strategies that build on theory and prior research. Over the lastdecade, a growing body of research has identified risk factors for drug abuse that existin youths’ environments. In particular, the family environment has been shown to exerta powerful influence on adolescents’ potential drug use. Poor bonding between childrenand parents (Brook, Brook, Gordon, Whiteman, & Cohen, 1990), low parental involve-ment in activities with children (Kandel & Andrews, 1987), maternal isolation (Werner& Smith, 1982), poor family management practices (Coombs & Landsverk, 1988), andfamily history and parental approval of drug use (Hawkins, 1988) put youth at risk. Fur-thermore, the risk for youth drug use is increased when youths’ families are economi-cally disadvantaged (West, 1982; West & Farrington, 1979). Given the tremendous influ-ence the family environment has on young people, prevention researchers stronglyadvocate the involvement of parents in drug prevention programs for youth (DeMarsh& Kumpfer, 1986; Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992).

However, identifying and effectively implementing appropriate prevention programsfor parents of youth exposed to these risks is extremely challenging. A multitude of gen-eral family life skills programs and some parenting programs directed specifically towardthe prevention of youth drug use exist, but most were designed for middle-class Whiteparents. Most follow structured curricula, are often offered in weekly sessions, and in-volve didactic material, role-playing, discussions, and homework, strategies not appro-priate for high-risk families (DeMarsh & Kumpfer, 1986; Alvy, 1988).

Moreover, published evaluations of parent programs specifically designed to preventor reduce drug use by high-risk youth are rare (DeMarsh & Kumpfer, 1986). These eval-uations have been fraught with problems including: (1) high attrition (DeMarsh &Kumpfer, 1986); (2) small sample size (Klein & Swisher, 1983; Klitzner, Gruenewald, &Bamberger, 1990); (3) selection bias (DeMarsh & Kumpfer, 1986; Albert, Simpson, andEaglesham, 1983); (4) inability to secure and maintain control groups (Lorion & Ross,1992); and (5) lack of longitudinal designs (Lorion & Ross, 1992).

There are probably few well-designed and evaluated parent programs with high-riskfamilies because attracting and retaining parents is hardest among low-income popula-tions (Chilman, 1973; Halpern, 1990). Researchers shy away from such programs due tothe tremendous methodological challenges of evaluating preventive interventions incommunity settings with high-risk populations (Van Hasselt et al., 1993). Everyday stres-sors in low-income families’ environments such as poverty, poor housing, and unem-ployment make it difficult for programs to recruit and retain parents (Chilman, 1973).It is well documented that parent participation by low-income parents is typically low (Co-hen & Rice, 1995; DeMarsh & Kumpfer, 1986; Miller & Prinz, 1990) and that attemptingto involve low-income parents requires continuous labor-intensive efforts difficult to sus-tain over time by program staff (Ruch-Ross, 1992).

In this article, we discuss strategies used to recruit and retain parents of high-riskyouth in a parent involvement program offered with a youth drug prevention programimplemented in four Boys & Girls Clubs in different states. We believe that these strate-gies were integral to involving youths’ parents in the program and that parent partici-pation greatly contributed to the positive outcome results for youth. Below is a descrip-

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tion of the study and the outcome evaluation results, the parent involvement program,and a discussion of strategies to involve parents that were learned through our experi-ences conducting the multi-year prevention study.

THE STUDY

The longitudinal study tested the incremental impact of a three-year youth drug pre-vention program with monthly youth activities and a parent involvement program (FANClub Group) relative to: (1) the three-year drug prevention program with monthly youthactivities but without parent involvement (Prevention Plus Group); (2) the three-yeardrug prevention program alone (Prevention Only Group); and (3) no program (Con-trol Group).

Sixteen Boys & Girls Clubs from eight different states in the East, South, and Mid-west participated in the study. Matched on as many socioeconomic and demographiccharacteristics as possible, four clubs were selected to participate in each of the fourstudy groups described above.

Participating clubs were located in what the Annie E. Casey Foundation terms “se-verely distressed neighborhoods.” According to the Foundation (1994), a neighborhoodis considered severely distressed if it meets at least four of five indicators. Average per-centages on four of these indicators for the census tracts in which the 16 clubs were lo-cated were: (1) incomes below poverty level above 27.5% (study clubs, 34%); (2) publicassistance recipients above 17% (study clubs, 20%); (3) female-headed households above39.6% (study clubs, 43%); and (4) high school dropouts above 23.3% (study clubs, 48%).

The 16 clubs also were located in high-risk neighborhoods with high crime rates and,in most cases, where the selling and using of drugs was prevalent. Fifty-eight percent ofyouth participants reported on the delayed posttest that “many” or “most” people in theirneighborhoods were using illegal drugs, and 61% indicated they had personally seen co-caine, crack, or other illegal drugs sold in their neighborhoods. Seventy-eight percentsaid they had been offered illegal drugs, half of them “three or more times.” Sixty per-cent said it would be easy to get marijuana, and 49% said it would be easy for them toget other illegal drugs.

Three hundred youth (96 in FAN Club; 64 in Prevention Plus; 84 in Prevention Only;and 56 in control) participated in all seven testing occasions over the 36-month study.Participants were 28% White; 54% Black; 14% Hispanic; and 4% Black Hispanic. Sixty-four percent were male, 36% were female, and the average age at baseline was 11.35years.

Results from the youth self-report questionnaire indicated positive program effectsfor youth in Boys & Girls Clubs that offered the three-year youth prevention programwith monthly youth activities and the FAN Club parent program. Over the 36 months,the FAN Club group reported increasing ability to refuse alcohol, marijuana, and ciga-rettes, and increasing negative attitudes toward using marijuana. In contrast, the no-program control group of Boys & Girls Clubs showed decreasing ability to refuse alco-hol, marijuana, and cigarettes, increasing favorable attitudes toward marijuana use, andthe least knowledge of any of the groups. For the most part, the other two interventiongroups held fairly constant over the 36 months on their ability to refuse alcohol, mari-juana, and cigarettes, and their attitudes toward marijuana use. (See St. Pierre, Mark,Kaltreider, & Aikin, 1997, for a detailed description of the study’s outcome evaluationand the youth prevention program.)

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THE PARENT INVOLVEMENT PROGRAM

The parent involvement program, called the Family Advocacy Network or FAN Club forshort, was designed to strengthen high-risk families by creating a bond between programyouth and their parents, reducing maternal isolation, providing opportunities for fami-lies to participate in pleasurable activities together, assisting parents to influence theirchildren to lead drug-free lives, and providing social and instrumental support. Basedon the family support-resource model (Weissbourd & Kagan, 1989), the FAN Club wasdesigned to focus on families’ strengths rather than deficits, to inspire parental confi-dence and competence, to respond to family cultural preferences and values, to take adevelopmental view of parents, to be flexible and responsive to parental needs, to en-courage voluntary participation by parents, and to include parents as partners in theplanning and implementation of the program.

The FAN Club’s four developmental categories of parent involvement activities wereadapted from Landerholm and Karr’s (1988) typology for involving parents in earlychildhood intervention programs. This approach focuses on the development of supportsystems for families and creating a match between parent needs and involvement op-portunities. By offering a developmental continuum of activities, parents can participateat their level of readiness. Some parents may be experiencing a great deal of stress whichcan affect the parent’s ability to function and to be a good parent. High family stress canaffect the child ( Jeremy & Bernstein, 1984) but having support and resources can re-duce the stress (Bristol, 1983; Dyson & Fewell, 1986; Gabel & Kotsch, 1981).

Many FAN Club families experienced high levels of stress in their daily lives and lowlevels of support. Many were socially isolated, had few friends, no phone, no transporta-tion, and no job. Offering a flexible program with developmental categories of activitiesprovided opportunities for families to participate according to their needs and wants.The program was geared to meet the needs of the parents rather than expecting parentsto meet the needs of the program.

A full-time FAN Club Coordinator and a part-time Parent Assistant (from the targetpopulation) were hired to conduct the FAN Club program (The FAN Club Coordinatoralso conducted the youth prevention programs.) Based at the Boys & Girls Club, FANClub activities fell broadly into four categories that fit the developmental needs of pro-gram parents.

Basic Support Activities helped families cope with daily life or with particular crises.This support was offered by the FAN Club Coordinator on a one-to-one basis to parents.At times, the support was necessary before a family was ready to participate in more struc-tured FAN Club activities at the Boys & Girls Club. Examples of basic support activitiesby FAN Club Coordinators included accompanying parents to appointments with socialservice agencies, assisting parents in dealings with their children’s school, giving supportto parents whose spouse or children were involved with the criminal justice system, help-ing a parent through crises by linking them with appropriate helping networks and shel-ters, providing transportation to parents for medical or court appointments, and visitinga parent in the hospital. FAN Club Coordinators became familiar with families’ needsand routinely made home visits to see how families were doing.

Parent Support Activities were regularly scheduled social activities that parents select-ed and participated in as a group. Though mostly social, these activities provided op-portunities for parents to give and receive support that many otherwise did not have be-cause of being socially isolated. Some activities were offered to parents only; others were


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open to parents and children. Examples of parent support activities were potluck din-ners, attending one another’s churches, bingo, picnics, crafts projects, pool parties,meeting for coffee, ice cream socials, movies, bowling, and skating.

Educational Program Activities, also selected by FAN Club parents, were designed toprovide education, knowledge, or enrichment experiences. Examples included speakersto discuss parenting, culturally appropriate events such as Black History programs, APuerto Rican Culture parade and Puerto Rican Heritage Night, AIDS programs, gangprevention workshops, health fairs, and the Boys & Girls Club of America’s drug pre-vention parent program, Keep SMART.

Leadership Activities were those which parents voluntarily took a major role in plan-ning and implementing. These included monthly FAN Club planning meetings, fundrais-ing, volunteering in the Boys & Girls Club programs (including the summer lunch pro-gram and club-wide dinners), visiting local nursing homes, and prevention programgraduations.

Level of Parent Involvement

As noted, FAN Club parents selected and helped implement a variety of family and par-ent activities each month. The FAN Club Coordinator and Parent Assistant provided thestructure for the activities, reminded and often persuaded parents to attend, and pro-vided transportation when necessary.

The number of activities offered varied across years and, to some extent, across clubs.Averaging across clubs, the number of activities, by program year, was: Year 1 5 24 (6months); Year 2 5 64 (9 months); and Year 3 5 62 (9 months). Participation in FANClub activities varied by club, by family, and by particular life events and stresses indi-vidual families were experiencing over time. The mean and standard deviation of thenumber of activities attended, by year are: Year 1, Mean 5 5.51, SD 5 5.38; Year 2, Mean5 10.13, SD 5 13.39; and Year 3, Mean 5 8.62, SD 5 11.37. The median number of ac-tivities attended each year was 4.00. Additional analyses of parent involvement data in-dicated that over the three years of the program, 44% of the 96 program youths’ parents(one parent counted per youth) participated in at least one program activity (on aver-age) per month, not including summers when parents decided to plan minimal activi-ties. Fifty-four percent of program parents attended a FAN Club activity (on average, notincluding summers) every other month. Social activities (within the Parent Support cat-egory) drew the highest levels of parent involvement.

Through this research, we learned that recruiting and maintaining parent involve-ment with high-risk populations is a fragile process relying on the personal skills of staffand requiring considerable time and effort. Even the most skilled staff will achieve lim-ited success with some parents. However, we found that it is possible to involve many par-ents by employing specific strategies.

Strategies for Involving Parents

Over the three-year study, a multitude of strategies were tried in attempting to involvethe parents of high-risk youth in the FAN Club component of the prevention program.Of these, six general groups of successful strategies were identified for recruiting and re-taining FAN Club parents. We identified these strategies through our weekly telephoneinterviews with FAN Club Coordinators, feedback from Coordinators during project


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trainings held twice a year, and observations during our site visits to each of the four Boys& Girls Clubs implementing the FAN Club.

Identify the right person to lead the program. We discovered that the most important strategyfor involving parents of high-risk youth was to find a program leader who possessed spe-cific characteristics that were inherent rather than learned. Because a major goal of theFAN Club was to empower and strengthen families, it was essential that the FAN ClubCoordinator be a positive individual who could remain optimistic and hopeful under themost challenging circumstances, not into power or control, confident but not aloof, andwho focused on families’ strengths rather than deficits. FAN Club Coordinators alsoneeded to have high levels of creativity, energy, and enthusiasm.

For example, when one parent who was trying to complete a vocational school de-gree program repeatedly experienced multiple problems with her drug-using husband,her emotionally troubled son, and threats of eviction from the housing authority, theFAN Club Coordinator helped her draw upon her own strengths. Through seeminglyunsurmountable obstacles and multiple setbacks, including physical threats from herhusband, her 16-year-old son running away from home, and her attempted suicide, theCoordinator gave her continuous encouragement that she could handle these chal-lenges. He also assisted in linking her to appropriate helping agencies and provided fre-quent emotional and instrumental support as she dealt with these agencies. When shefinally graduated with her vocational school degree, the FAN Club attended her gradu-ation and held a small celebration for her afterward. The support provided by the FANClub Coordinator and the other FAN Club parents appeared to help her cope with thedifficult problems in her life.

At times, it was difficult for Coordinators to remain positive because families’ situa-tions frequently did not improve, in spite of Coordinators’ support. One FAN Club Co-ordinator worked for weeks to help a mother and her daughter acquire safe shelter froman abusive boyfriend, only to discover a few days later that the woman had moved backin with her boyfriend. In less than a month, the woman revealed to the Coordinator thatshe was being abused again and wanted to seek safety. Despite the woman’s previous be-havior, the Coordinator continued to be positive and supportive, again helping her ac-quire safe housing in a shelter.

Consistent with the literature (Cunningham, 1991), we also found it helpful for FANClub Coordinators to be of the same culture-ethnicity as the populations they served.For example, the Hispanic Coordinator was quickly accepted by the Hispanic familieswho were predominant at one site. Her ability to speak Spanish and to share parents’cultural values seemed to make many parents feel comfortable immediately. When theHispanic Coordinator left the position, an Anglo-male Coordinator eventually was ableto establish rapport. However, we believe he developed positive relationships with theHispanic families because he possessed many of the inherent characteristics previouslydescribed. In addition, the non-Hispanic FAN Club Coordinator learned about andshowed respect for Hispanic families’ culture.

Finally, it was very helpful for the FAN Club Coordinator to know the communityand to have a proven track record with community organizations and services. Coordi-nators frequently linked families to social service agencies and helping networks. By be-ing knowledgeable about available resources and having access to key people offeringservices, Coordinators were able to quickly link families to the most appropriate re-sources. For example, at one site, a mother needed to complete an 11-page application


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for her son to participate in a program as an alternative to incarceration. Knowing theparent would have difficulty with the application and probably would not have complet-ed it, the FAN Club Coordinator and the parent picked up the paperwork ahead of timeand completed it together. When they returned to the agency with the completed form,the parent felt proud that she had effectively secured a more appropriate consequencefor her son.

Coming to the position with well-established positive relationships in the communi-ty also helped the FAN Club Coordinators secure resource people for FAN Club activi-ties. One FAN Club Coordinator arranged for a parent educator from a social servicesagency, whom he had known from his previous work in the community, to hold infor-mal parenting sessions on topics FAN Club parents selected. The parent educator be-came so popular with parents that she facilitated parent sessions for several months. Par-ents also invited her to a variety of other FAN Club activities. In exchange, the FAN ClubCoordinator served on the advisory board for the parent educator’s organization.

This FAN Club Coordinator served on multiple advisory boards as well as an inter-agency group consisting of representatives from a large group of family-serving agenciesin community. These agencies collaborated on a great many community activities suchas Red Ribbon Week, and also contributed to one another’s programs.

Identifying and recruiting individuals with these characteristics is not easy, particu-larly when youth organizations frequently pay low salaries, and the position entails work-ing weekends and evenings. Despite high levels of commitment to high-risk families, therealities of survival compel many qualified people to accept higher-paid positions. Forexample, the Hispanic FAN Club Coordinator discussed previously had moved fromPuerto Rico with her husband and two young children a few months before acceptingthe FAN Club Coordinator position. Her husband, who spoke little English and was un-able to find a job, decided to go back to college. Therefore, after just nine months asFAN Club Coordinator, she reluctantly accepted a much higher paying position at a lo-cal social service agency that recognized her excellent work with the high-risk popula-tion they also were attempting to reach. Not only was the salary substantially higher, thehours were nine-to-five, which allowed her to be home with her children while her hus-band attended night classes.

Although difficult, individuals with these personal attributes can be found. Our ex-periences have demonstrated that making the extra effort, taking the necessary time,and offering a qualified individual the very highest salary possible, is well worth it.

Clearly convey the purpose of the program. Although families in the study were extremely high-risk and led stressful daily lives, they cared about the well-being of their children and didnot want them to use drugs. Therefore, the purpose of the FAN Club (to strengthen fam-ilies to help youth resist the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs) and the youthdrug prevention program was personally important to the majority of the study’s parents.

However, in the early months of the study when FAN Club Coordinators started invit-ing parents to FAN Club activities, Coordinators discovered that the parents didn’t real-ly understand what the FAN Club was about. Each parent had been told personally thepurpose of the FAN Club, and each had been given material describing the program.Most parents probably had not read the material. For those who had read it, the pur-pose of the program may have been unclear because the FAN Club offered a variety ofparent and family activities that were designed to indirectly help youth avoid future al-cohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use. In contrast, more traditional single-focus


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programs such as parenting classes or MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) conductprogram activities more directly linked to their purposes.

Therefore, in recruiting and retaining parents, as well as during all FAN Club activ-ities, FAN Club Coordinators regularly emphasized the program’s goal to strengthenfamilies to help youth avoid ATOD use. Coordinators also frequently reminded parentsof the importance of their child’s participation in the youth drug prevention programand how the Boys & Girls Club and parents were working together to help their childrenavoid drug use. Continuously conveying the purpose of the FAN Club and the impor-tance of their child’s attendance at the prevention program sessions served to motivatemany parents to participate. It also helped maintain program attendance in the youthprevention program.

Build relationships of mutual trust, respect, and equality. An essential element of involvinghard-to-reach parents was developing a sincere relationship with each parent based onrespect and equality. FAN Club Coordinators initially got to know parents by mailing ordelivering flyers describing upcoming FAN Club activities, making phone calls, and mak-ing home visits to invite parents to FAN Club events. Coordinators also made themselvesvisible in the community by attending PTA meetings, local churches, and tenant associ-ation meetings.

Coordinators reinforced parent involvement in FAN Club events by calling the nextday to thank parents for coming, to ask them how they enjoyed the evening, to thankthem for contributing a good idea, or to tell them how much the group enjoyed the dishthey brought. With each contact made with respect and sincerity, trust gradually grew be-tween the Coordinators and parents. For parents who didn’t attend FAN Club events, Co-ordinators dropped by their homes to personally say they were missed and to remindparents of the next FAN Club activity.

FAN Club Coordinators became very familiar with parents over the duration of thethree-year study. Having the children involved in the prevention program increased op-portunities for Coordinators to interact with the parents. FAN Club Coordinators calledparents to remind them of upcoming youth activities, and talked to parents when trans-porting children home from the prevention program sessions. At other times, parentscontacted FAN Club Coordinators about problems they were having with their child-ren, or with another aspect of their lives. Parents also called the Coordinators for posi-tive things, such as thanking them for helping their son or daughter complete a schoolproject.

At one site, a single-parent whose older son previously was in trouble with the law,asked the FAN Club Coordinator to talk to her younger son about his truancy fromschool. The younger son told his mother that he looked up to the Coordinator morethan any other person. The FAN Club Coordinator talked to the youth about the im-portance of regularly attending school, and for several weeks spent extra time with theboy. This extra attention appeared to influence the youth to attend school regularly.

As FAN Club Coordinators became familiar with families over time, they knew whichfamilies were dealing with high levels of family stress, such as an escalation in spousalabuse, an arrest in the family, financial crises resulting in utilities being cut off, receiptof an eviction notice, or return of a drug-using family member. During peak crises, typ-ically these parents were too stressed to participate in FAN Club activities. FAN Club Co-ordinators visited these families weekly to offer emotional support and to provide otherassistance when necessary.


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Using an empowerment approach with families was challenging. With so many prob-lems, many parents had very low self-esteem and viewed themselves as having no capa-bilities. FAN Club Coordinators took every opportunity to point out parents’ strengths.Also, through encouraging parents to select and implement FAN Club activities, parents’sense of self-confidence and competence increased as they saw the results of their efforts.

At one site, parents and youth created a “Party in the Playground,” a carnival wherethey sold tickets to games and activities they had created. The carnival was extremely suc-cessful, raising over $300 that families used to finance a FAN Club family trip to a pop-ular amusement park. Parents and youth felt proud and accomplished after the eventand were inspired to create other activities.

Respectful treatment toward parents by the other Boys & Girls Club staff membersalso contributed to parents’ participation in the FAN Club. Creating a welcoming at-mosphere where staff were friendly to parents reduced intimidation, and made parentsfeel more comfortable about coming back.

Create parent ownership and group bonding. FAN Club Coordinators knew that parentswould be more likely to participate in the FAN Club if activities met parents’ needs andif parents felt comfortable with the other participants. Therefore, FAN Club Coordina-tors set the stage for parent ownership and group bonding. As parents became more fa-miliar with the FAN Club Coordinators, a core group of four to five parents at each ofthe four Boys & Girls Clubs began participating in FAN Club meetings fairly regularly.As parents got to know one another better, they began freely expressing the type of ac-tivities they wanted for the FAN Club. The Coordinator facilitated their enjoyment ofone another by creating a friendly informal atmosphere with refreshments and fun.

Over time, the FAN Club Coordinator took less and less of the lead in organizing ac-tivities, and parents took more of the lead. As each activity took place—ranging from par-ents’ selecting a parent education topic to more ambitious activities such as a commu-nity Black History program—numbers of parents involved went up, ownership of theprogram increased, attachment and bonding among the parents grew.

At one site, FAN Club parents became very involved in volunteering in regular Boys& Girls Club activities. Each summer, three FAN Club parents came to the club every dayto serve the summer lunch program, which included lunch and an afternoon snack forclub members. The parents managed the entire program themselves making sure at leasttwo parents were there each day.

At all four sites, FAN Club parents were particularly enthusiastic about creating grad-uation programs for their children who had finished the year’s prevention program.Moreover, these graduation programs routinely attracted the highest number of parents.

Provide easy access, incentives, and reminders. FAN Club Coordinators recognized early thelogistical barriers that needed to be removed before families could participate in theFAN Club program. Most families did not own cars and had several small children.Therefore, FAN Club Coordinators routinely provided transportation and child care forevents. Sometimes FAN Club activities were taken to parents’ homes. All four FAN ClubCoordinators conducted the Keep SMART parent drug prevention program in thehomes of some families who were reluctant to come to the sessions at the Boys & GirlsClub. This one-on-one interaction sometimes resulted in the parent feeling comfortableenough to attend a FAN Club activity. Access to FAN Club activities also was increased byoffering a variety of activities on different nights (or afternoons) of the week.


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Over the three-year study, multiple incentives to recruit and maintain parents weretried. The most popular incentive was food. Refreshments selected by parents wereserved at all FAN Club activities. Some FAN Club Coordinators took parents out to din-ner after an event as recognition for their hard work in conducting the activity. Otherincentives included gift certificates for participating in all four sessions of the KeepSMART parent drug prevention program, and small door prizes at activities. At one site,parents planned a family trip to the shore as a reward for youth participation in a setnumber of prevention program sessions and a set level of parent involvement in FANClub activities.

Regardless of how well established the FAN Club became, it was necessary for the FANClub Coordinator and the Parent Assistant to provide reminders to parents that activitieswere going to take place. Parents were typically called by telephone the day before an ac-tivity as well as the day of the activity. If parents did not have a phone, a home visit wasmade. Postcards, personal invitations, and newsletters also were used to remind parents.A particularly effective strategy used by all four FAN Clubs was a monthly calendar of ac-tivities. Each month, after parents determined parent activities and family activities, theFAN Club Coordinator distributed to all families an attractive calendar marking the datesof these events. In addition to reminding families of FAN Club activities, delivering thecalendars gave Coordinators an additional reason to drop by families’ homes.

Be flexible but persistent (within reason). FAN Club Coordinators learned early in the studythat many activities did not materialize as planned. Given the multiple crises in families’lives and the intimidation felt by some parents, it is not surprising that participation inFAN Club activities was highly erratic. On many occasions, parents told Coordinatorsthey would come to an activity but did not show up. At times, snow or rain lowered at-tendance. It was important for FAN Club Coordinators not to take low attendance per-sonally and not to hold a grudge against parents who promised to show up but didn’t.It also was important for the Coordinators to remain flexible and recognize that activi-ties often would need to be rescheduled. Although challenging, FAN Club Coordinatorscontinued doing their best to maintain their enthusiasm and persistence in ongoingattempts to engage the parents.

At other times, Coordinators were overtly rejected by parents. Some parents toldFAN Club Coordinators directly to leave them alone. Other parents conveyed that mes-sage by not answering their door when the Coordinator visited, or simply by never par-ticipating in FAN Club activities regardless of the FAN Club Coordinators’ multiple at-tempts to engage them. Regardless of how much skill and persistence was demonstratedby Coordinators, some families never became involved.

DISCUSSION

Study results showing positive program effects for youth in Boys & Girls Clubs that of-fered the FAN Club parent involvement program with the three-year youth preventionprogram and monthly youth activities provide encouraging support for offering parentinvolvement programs in community youth-serving organizations. However, parent par-ticipation in the FAN Club was dependent on the application of specific strategieslearned over the course of the study. Given the great difficulty of involving high-risk par-ents, it is highly likely that these strategies made an important contribution to the posi-tive program outcomes found for youth.

Implement the FAN Club required a fulltime FAN Club Coordinator with great skill


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and personal motivation to involve high-risk families, as well as skills to work with youth.The Coordinator also required training to build on the skills he or she brought to theposition. The part-time Parent Assistant, from the target population, provided an im-portant link to FAN Club parents, making phone calls to remind parents of activities, andhelping the FAN Club Coordinators understand parents’ perspectives. The Hispanic Par-ent Assistant was particularly valuable in the site with the Hispanic population becausethe Anglo FAN Club Coordinator did not speak Spanish.

Implementing the FAN Club also required support from the entire Boys & Girls Cluborganization. Gaining this support was challenging at times. The longstanding missionof Boys & Girls Clubs has been to serve youth, and expanding this mission to serveyouths’ parents was difficult for some staff to accept. Most Boys & Girls Club staff hadlittle experience working with parents, and some staff members blamed youths’ parentsfor problems their children were experiencing. As a result, at the beginning of the study,staff members often were not available to help FAN Club Coordinators with the youthprevention program or with large FAN Club activities. In some cases, staff inadvertentlymade the FAN Club Coordinator’s job more difficult by scheduling club activities in thesame room the FAN Club had planned to use, or by using the club van when the FANClub Coordinator needed it to transport parents or families to a FAN Club activity.

However, by the second and third years of the program, staff began to see some ben-efits from parent involvement. For example, when club members who were in the FANClub project became disruptive at the club, the FAN Club Coordinator helped staff un-derstand that the youth’s family was experiencing problems. A parent may have beensent to prison recently and the youth had moved in with another relative, or the familymay have been evicted from public housing. Knowing this, staff could be more under-standing of a youth’s behavior, and therefore more supportive than punitive. Staff alsowere positively impressed with parent involvement when parents volunteered their timeto help at the club. Parents managing and serving the entire summer lunch program atone site freed up club staff to focus on other club responsibilities.

Admittedly, implementing a parent involvement program like the Family AdvocacyNetwork is demanding. The program requires financial resources to hire a fulltime Co-ordinator, a great deal of skill, time, and effort from that individual, and commitment bythe youth organization that parent involvement is important. Understandably, many com-munity youth organizations may immediately dismiss the notion of conducting such aprogram because of limited resources. However, given that communities across the na-tion are facing a dramatic increase in youth drug use and that multiple family risk fac-tors are exhibited by many disadvantaged youth, youth organizations may find it benefi-cial to re-examine their priorities. Our study results indicated that the FAN Club and theyouth drug prevention program together show promise for helping youth refuse alco-hol, marijuana, and cigarettes. Strategies learned through conducting the three-year pro-gram may help community youth-serving organizations strengthen youths’ families byjoining together with parents in a united effort to prevent youth drug use.

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