Child Trends Strategies on Risky Behavior Among Teens

Child Trends is an organization that focuses its attention on current news and trends that affect our youth. The most recent newsletter by Child Trends discusses an annual event hosted by the organization. The event is in honor of Child Trends Senior Research Scholar and former Child Trends President, Kristin Moore. The focus of this year’s lecture was the research conducted by Dr. Richard Catalano on the Communities that Care (CTC) program implemented in 500 communities  worldwide to provide services and support to at-risk adolescents

“Dr. Catalano, from the University of Washington School of Social Work, spoke about the Communities that Care approach, a community-wide effort to reduce risk factors and to build protective factors, and one that has been found to have significant positive impacts on adolescents. Child Trends released a new brief, Mobilizing Communities to Implement Tested and Effective Programs to Help Youth Avoid Risky Behaviors, which reviews the CTC program model. The model integrates rigorously evaluated programs with community efforts to reduce risky behavior. Youth in CTC sites have been found to be less likely to start smoking, drinking, or engaging in delinquent behavior”

In following the theme of the lecture’s topic, Child Trends also released a publication, “Preventing Multiple Risky Behaviors Among Adolescents: Seven Strategies”. Each tip or piece of advice offered in the publication was backed by scientific data and evaluations and have proven to to reduce multiple risky behaviors among adolescence in a variety of settings, be it school, home, or a social gathering.

Some of the strategies include

1. Support and strengthen family functioning;
2. Increase connections between students and their schools;
3. Make communities safe and supportive for children and youth

The publications offers an approach to each strategy and explains how each strategy can aid in the reduction of overall risky behavior among teens. To read the full publication and learn all seven strategies and approaches, click here.