Children who are subject to negative or bad environments are more prone to engaging in drugs and alcohol. There are many programs that bring awareness and prevention to alcohol and drugs. The South Carolina Afterschool Alliance program provides groups and organizations with an effective after-school program plan. The after-school programs are essential in promoting awareness and prevention of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, abstinence, and violence to young children or adolescents.
The South Carolina Afterschool Alliance program strives to reach the community and explain the importance of after-school programs. They provide information and guidelines to organizations and groups on how to have effective after-school programs. The program provides activities and lesson plans to engage children by having fun and learning at the same time. Making after-school activities different from school lessons determines the effectiveness of the programs. . The overall goal of the South Carolina Afterschool Alliance is to establish a statewide network of diverse stakeholders that will guide, support, and enable quality after school services and policies for all children and youth (ASCAA, 1969). Guide and support are the two main effective tools keeping children involved in after-school programs instead of drugs or gangs.
Children who are subject to walking home alone or staying at home by themselves in bad drug invested neighborhoods endure more influences to drug use than suburban areas. Typically, poverty stricken homes are in social environments where drugs and violence are frequent. Mooney, Knox, & Schacht (2011) write, “Drugs are a social problem not only because of their adverse effects on individuals but also because of the negat...
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...ren go home to an empty lonely home with no food. For some children after-school programs are all the hope they have. It only takes one person to influence change on a child’s life.
Works cited:
Benavente, J. (2006). After school activities can change a child’s life. Colorado State University Extension. Family and Consumer Science, Adams County
(1pg). Retrieved from:
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/columncc/cc060905.html
Mooney, L., Knox, D., & Schacht, C. (2011). Understanding Social Problems.
Wadsworth Cengage Learning. 8-16.
Web resources:
ASCAA. (1969). South Carolina After School Alliance. Retrieved from:
http://www.scafterschool.com/index.php?pageid=3
Learning Point Associates, Top Five Reasons Afterschool Programs Are on the
Rise. (1pp). Retrieved from:
http://www.learningpt.org/pdfs/afterschool/TopFiveReasons.pdf
In doing so it showed how powerless and mentally damage these children were. It is not by far an excuse for their actions. But is does show how these children were seeking for the love and acceptance of someone, anyone. This led them down path of destruction. This program is a huge success and has 74 percent rate of recidivism (Hubner, 2005, xxi). This is due to the fact that they are treated like human being and children. Their lives at the school revolves around the concept of resocialization, from lodging, to their therapy sessions, to their schools, to their vocational programs, to recreation program which is football (Hubner, 2005, xxi). This allows the youths to learn and grow from their actions in an area where they are being
Hart, C., Ksir, C., & Ray, O. (2008). Drugs, Society, and Human Behavior (13th ed.). New York,
Measures of prevention or intervention that can be taken include creating early prevention programs, collaboration between the school, police, and parents, and policy measures. Programs that focus on increasing positive interactions with peers and encourage self esteem can help deter a child from a lifestyle susceptible to gang recruiting later in life (Simon, Ritter, and Mahendra, 2013). Such programs are vital in the school environment, where a youth spends most of his/her day. Schools must take note of the common signs of a youth with a high risk of becoming a gang member, for instance, poor grades and performance, and social rejection in the form of being bullied or being the bully. Moreover, schools should offer programs that raise awareness
After school programs can potentially decide the direction of many elementary age students? futures, as well as the communities in which they live. After school programs serve a great advantage to inner city elementary age kids by allowing them the opportunity to interact in a supervised location with mentors, because these mentors do no not only te...
Many environmental factors contribute to a person’s proneness to substance abuse. These factors include but are not limited to stress, early physical or sexual abuse, witnessing violence, peers who use drugs, and drug availability. (Addiction Science) The desire to be accepted within a particular group often creates an enormous amount of stress in teens. This stress and feeling of alienation is a driving force towards drug use. Research has shown that, “Another important environmental factor is the amount and quality of emotional and social support a person receives. Teens who reported having an adult they trusted and could talk to, for example, have a lower risk of addiction than those who don’t.”(Environmental Factors) An impoverished environment increases the likelihood of substance abuse and addiction as well. Those who are apart of a lifestyle of poverty often experience incarceration and dropping out of school. Those who drop out of school, are unemployed or live in unsafe areas are at “higher risk, especially if their home environment has already exposed them to dru...
Similarly the background of the people who become involved in drug usage which could result in crime are predisposed to drug related behavior early on in their households (Winfree et. Al., 1993). It is interesting to see how drug usage can affect people early in their life’s because one could assume that their drug usage would get higher later on. These people are likely to be molded into a lifestyle that involves heavy drug usage and result in committed crimes.
Parent(s) should be able to provide a stable and loving environment for their children to grow up in, unfortunately, for drug addicted parents this feat seems impossible. Addicts must satisfy their own needs over anything else (Street, Whitlingum, Gibson, Cairns, and Ellis 2011). The high cost of drugs and their bizarre side effects cause rocky, unpredictable daily lives for the children of these addicts. Estimates show “…6 million children live with a parent who abuses alcohol or other drugs” (Taylor 2011). Children that reside with substance abusing parents enter into a perpetual cycle of physical abuse, neglect and emotional trauma. Numerous children raise themselves and/or their siblings because their parent(s) are either too drugged up to tend to their needs or are not home at ...
Drugs cause an overall disturbance in a subjects’ physiological, psychological and emotional health. “At the individual level, drug abuse creates health hazards for the user, affecting the educational and general development of youths in particular” (“Fresh Challenge”). In youth specifically, drug abuse can be triggered by factors such as: a parent’s abusive behavior, poor social skills, family history of alcoholism or substance abuse, the divorce of parents or guardians, poverty, the death of a loved one, or even because they are being bullied at school (“Drugs, brains, and behavior”) .
In general, poverty is dominantly in inner-city neighborhoods. The isolation of poverty driven cities causes lower employment rate and diminishing government services such as school systems, health care, and police protection. The consequence of this is destructive environmental pressures such as violence, drug use, and gang affiliation (McLoyd, 1998). Poverty is more prevalent in African Americans and Latinos rather than white people. This correlates with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Association statistic that states African American drug use in ages 12 and up is 12.4% and 8.9% in the Latino community compared the 10.2% national average (SAMHSA, 2014). McLoyd’s childhood poverty graph shows that children under the age of five
The decline in casual drugs use may be unrelated to the war on drugs. Furthermore, stressors at a macro level such as economic deprivation, inequality, structural discrimination, and other pervasive stressors in the environment may serve as risk factors for drug use. Also family and peer influence is a strong correlate of drug use. The widespread prevalence of use of marijuana among youth, continues to generate a moral panic, even though evidence states that marijuana usage causes few significant health or behavioral problems to vast majority of the people who consume
After interviewing my teenage cousin whom has been in several altercations at home and school, enlightened me on the ways that teenagers in her age group gets involved in drug use. Kids start as young as ten years of age using, selling, and experimenting with drugs. My teenage cousin was expelled from public schools when she started experimenting with drugs. She was surrounded by many challenges when she enrolled in the alternative behavioral school. Many students, whom attend the alternative behavioral school use drugs, sell drugs, are on probation, have been arrested, engage in sexual activity and drink alcohol. Being surrounded by several of these activities that take place in the school, she has been approached by many, and has taken an interest in engaging in these bad activities. She lies to her parents about where she is going and where she has been. She has sold her electronics for drugs and alcohol, snuck out of her house to party with friends, and have runaway to stay with her friend to take part in sexual intercourse. Peer influences, as we have seen, a...
At household levels, the drug users usually divert the income meant for the family’s upkeep for purchasing drugs (Barnard, 2007). Also, junior members of the family who abuse drugs tend to commit crimes that may force the relatives to pay for the expenses. The living standard of the family is; therefore, affected leading to unnecessary suffering.
... Disa Cornish, Melvin Gonnerman, and Margaret Ralston. "Impact of Participation in High School Extracuricular Activities on Early Life Experiences: A Study of Iowa Graduates." University of Northern Iowa (2009): 36. Web. 10 Mar 2014.
The headlines proclaimed the controversial news: race, poverty, and single-parents were NOT the irrevocable harbingers of drug abuse, teen pregnancy, and violence. Instead, researchers were claiming that behaviors that parents and teens could influence -- such as problems at school and the amount of time spent "hanging out with friends" and the type of friends they chose -- could predict trouble.
Rizzolo, Allison. "PUBLICAGENDA.ORG - Survey: Sports, Arts, Clubs, Volunteering -- Out-of-School Activities Play Crucial, Positive Role for Kids." Survey: Sports, Arts, Clubs, Volunteering -- Out-of-School Activities Play Crucial, Positive Role for Kids. Public Agenda, 16 Nov. 2004. Web. 5 Mar. 2014