Director: Ken C. Winters, Ph.D.
Selected Projects: Research and Evaluation
Brief
Intervention for Drug-Abusing Delinquents/Parents: Ken C. Winters, Ph.D.
This R21 study will address the treatment gap for substance abusing, juvenile
offenders by modifying an existing brief intervention (BI) program for
application with at-risk juvenile offenders and their parents/caregivers.
The study targets a context (juvenile justice setting; JJS) and a stage
of drug use severity (mild or moderate drug abuse; MMDA) under-studied
in the adolescent clinical treatment literature. After manual modification,
the BI’s feasibility and acceptability will be evaluated by conducting
a controlled pilot study with a randomized trial of 90 juvenile offenders
at the Hillsborough County, FL Juvenile Arbitration Program, a juvenile
diversion program. Three groups will be compared: 2-session adolescent
only condition (BI-A); a 3-session condition with adolescent (2-session)
and parent (1-session) (BI-AP); and an assessment only control condition.
Evidence of the feasibility and acceptability of the BI will set the stage
for future R01s to test in randomized clinical trials the efficacy and
effectiveness of the BI for juvenile offenders in the community, and to
develop strategies to implement diffusion and technology transfer to other
jurisdictions. If successful, this efficient, relatively inexpensive intervention
has enormous potential for reducing risks for escalating drug abuse and
delinquency among delinquents, who currently receive few, if any, substance
abuse services. View Related
Projects from the Law and Ethics Research Section.
Selected Projects: Parent Outreach
Drugs
on the Internet; A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D.
Working with the Partnership for a Drug Free America, Dr. McLellan is
reaching out through national media outlets to spread the message to parents
that potent prescription medications are increasingly available from unregulated
Internet sites. Read
Story
Adolescent
Brain Development; Ken C. Winters, Ph.D.
Emerging science shows that brain development is still in progress during
adolescence, and that immature brain structures may place teenagers at
elevated risk of substance abuse and arrested brain development. Read
Report or View
Presentation
Adolescent
Brain Development and Pediatricians: Ken C. Winters, Ph.D.
Results from the Annual “Partnership Attitude Tracking Study”
by the Partnership for a Drug Free American (PDFA) confirm that kids who
report learning about the risks of drugs from their parents are 50% less
likely to use drugs than those who don’t. Dr. Winters works with
PDFA, through the American Academy of Pediatrics, to develop and deliver
training for pediatricians to work with the media in stories, interviews
and local programming to motivate parents to get more involved. Trainings
include techniques for working with the media along with new discoveries
in the neuro-science of developing adolescent brains, and the neuro-pharmacology
of the effects of drugs and alcohol on brain development.
Selected Projects: Policy Development
Keep Internet
Neighborhoods Safe: Preventing Internet Sales of Controlled Substances
to Youth; A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D.
TRI joins the Harvard Law School’s Center for International Criminal
Justice; Drug Strategies; OpenAir; and the Weill Medical Center of Cornell
University, to lead a public/private sector consortium of more than fifty
organizations dedicated to developing new strategies to curtail Internet
drug trafficking. Academic experts and representatives from Internet Service
Providers, search engines, banking and credit card companies, and government
drug enforcement agencies, have come together under this project to advocate
for a national strategy to curb Internet access to prescription drugs
before it becomes the source of the nation’s newest epidemic of
youth drug abuse.
