Mitigating Drug Abuse in Schools: How To Create Awareness & Change Student Behavior - Essay Sample

Introduction

Increased drug abuse among students has prompted the creation of effective training curriculums to teachers, administrators, parents, and other relevant stakeholders to provide them with the most reliable techniques of mitigating drug abuse among the students. Engaging students and providing lessons creating awareness regarding side effects and other health complications of the use of illegal drugs, a remarkable change in students' behavior are bound to be witnessed. More awareness and introduction of teacher-oriented educational approaches are very vital in ensuring the prevention of illegal drug use.

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Overall Benefits of the Deliverable

There are tremendous benefits associated with the deliverable in question. The professional development program matters as it will have a definite influence on the teachers, administrators, parents, other pertinent stakeholders, and the organization in numerous ways. The deliverable will avail viable and clear steps of actions in providing up-to-date knowledge regarding substance abuse. Additionally, this will provide intervention strategies that will be put in action to help mitigate the issue of drug abuse and illegal drug utilization among students. The society at large will also be enabled to see the effects, equipped with the knowhow and participate in providing solutions in reducing the number of students using illegal drugs within the community.

By availing up to date strategies of overcoming prevalent cases of drug abuse among students, teachers, administration, parents, and the society at large will find it easy to minimize the statistics of students engaging in substance abuse within the entire school district. The project is also very significant as it will engage the main four principles of andragogy theory enabling teachers to institute an aptitude to understand different implications, autonomy and fundamental principles of diverse learning techniques and crucial commitments with the learners (Chametzky, 2016). Therefore, this deliverable will offer all the stakeholders involved the opportunity to acquire educational component and pool of knowledge and skills necessary for substance abuse prevention, minimization, and management of drug abuse cases in schools.

Primary Applications of the Deliverable

The primary application of the deliverable is in training programs to teachers and school administrators intended to mitigate the challenge of drug abuse and illegal drug use among school students. Teachers and administrators will, therefore, be mandated to make use of knowledge and skills they obtained during professional development training offered as suggested by the deliverable to minimize illegal drug use among students (Pereira, Paes, & Sanchez, 2016). The professional development training program will provide different unique approaches to address drug abuse cases among students contrary to other training software products providing a universal approach that may not be viable.

Process of Developing the Deliverable

Teachers, administrators, and relevant stakeholders need to have appropriate knowledge and skills to assess and find proper ways of reducing numerous cases of illegal drug use in school. Therefore, due to the assessment needs, and by following the backward design model theory for curriculum development, all the subjects in question will be given professional development training corresponding to students' illegal substance abuse cases (Miller Juve, Koonz, Flores, & Simmons, 2015). There will be a panel discussion by professionals and specialists in the field of substance abuse among teenagers to come up with strategies that will ensure that the study site's student culture is refined. Thereafter, all the members will have group discussions regarding all the strategies provided during the panel discussion.

Beyond the Local Setting

The capstone project, despite being beneficial to administrators and teachers, it also offers numerous benefits to external settings. By availing up-to-date knowledge, skills and strategies required to address the increasing cases of illegal substance use among many high school students, external stakeholders, and the government will be able to minimize the drug abuse cases and achieve positive outcomes in the whole society. Additionally, the professional development training that will be availed by the capstone project, and involvement of backward design model theory for curriculum development, individuals will be equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to achieve excellent improvement in their performance in any area of their lives while focusing on the end results.

Implications for the Professional Specialization

With skills and knowledge, the targeted audience gains during professional development training offered by the capstone project, administrators and teachers will create sustainable frameworks and approaches necessary and suitable in addressing drug abuse-related cases among the students. As a result, this will ensure that both internal and external stakeholders become more competent and better in handling different circumstances by designing series of activities in a sequential manner and acquisition of appropriate resources that will assist in achieving the main objective.

References

Chametzky, B. (2016). Andragogy and Classic Grounded Theory: Hidden Connections. Advances in Research, 8(2), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.9734/air/2016/29004

Miller Juve, A., Koonz, C., Flores, C., & Simmons, S. (2015). Program Coordinator Professional Development Series. Mededportal Publications. https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.10275

Pereira, A., Paes, A., & Sanchez, Z. (2016). Factors associated with the implementation of programs for drug abuse prevention in schools. Revista De Saude Publica, 50(0). https://doi.org/10.1590/s1518-8787.2016050005819