María Victoria Hidalgo García

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.

Drug use prevention projects in schools in Vitória, Brazil: quality analysis and improvement proposals

Adolescents living in vulnerable regions are more exposed to risk factors for drug use. The prevention of such use in school is a public policy that needs evaluation. Based on technical criteria and derived from a mixed research, this article analyses the quality of school-based prevention of drug use in Vitória, state of Espírito Santo, Brazil, and proposes improvements. A checklist of quality elements was completed with data from 16 projects proposed by 99 teachers from public schools. In 10 projects (62.5%), the approximate quality index was above 0.50. The majority of projects fulfilled the requirement of theoretical foundation (81.25%) and some of the methodological (93.75%), design (75%) and implementation (62%) requirements. Other requirements were absent: the majority were not designed by the whole school community (87.5%), and the participation of the family (62.5%) or the students as mediators (62.5%) was not considered. In general, contents of life skills (87.5%), positive relationships and alternative activities to drug use (56.25%) were not included. Activities for reinforcing the content were not described in any of the projects, and evaluation activities were described in only a few (31.25%). Many projects did not describe the inclusion of the project in the school curriculum (62.5%). Although, considering all items of effectiveness, regardless of their weight, more than half of the projects had an above average quality. The present items provide quality to the projects, whereas absent items indicate shortcomings to be improved using some of the measures described in this study.