Lucía Antolín Suárez

Evaluación de la implementación de dos programas de prevención de drogodependencias en el sistema educativo andaluz : 'Dino y Prevenir para Vivir'

This article focuses on the evaluation of two school-based drug prevention programs, Dino and Prevenir para Vivir, both of which are widely applied in Andalusian schools. The scientific interest of this study may be traced to (1) the need to find indicators of the effectiveness of these programmes and (2) the lack of information about the application conditions and application characteristics of both Andalusian programmes. The study sample consisted of 250 schools running the Dino programme and 192 schools applying the Prevenir para Vivir programme. Study participants filled in an ad hoc questionnaire assessing different characteristics of programme application and their degree of satisfaction with the programmes. The results showed that the programmes were applied primarily by teachers, who reported a high-to-middle satisfaction level. In the light of empirical review, implementation presented both positive and negative aspects. The strengths were that, in most schools, there was coordinated planning prior to programme application, the programmes were applied at times when students had easy access and contents related to daily life skills were included. The weaknesses, on the other hand, were a lack of process evaluation before implementation, a lack of specific training for the people in charge of programme implementation and low family involvement during programme application. To summarize, this study provides important data about the specific aspects of implementation that government agencies or schools themselves could address to improve the effectiveness of Dino and Prevenir para Vivir.