At Risk Youth

Gangs are an unfortunate reality in many urban and suburban, settings. Many experts have noted that gangs are attractive to kids who have unstable or dangerous home lives, or who feel disconnected from their families and want a sense of belonging.

Shawn Holmes, the president of a Tennessee group that works with teens, addressed this issue in a letter to the editor that appeared in the March 7 edition of The Tennessean:

Parents, we need you more than ever. You play a key role in your kids’ lives; we need you to get more involved. Let them know you care about their welfare and the choices they make.

Let’s start family night all over again. Play games, watch movies or use that time to talk, to find out what is going on in their lives. Go to the school and talk to teachers to find out what areas they can improve in. Sit down with us and leaders of this city and come up with solutions on how to get our kids more involved in community and school activities.

Children whose parents are depressed are more at risk for depression themselves. Now two new studies from Vanderbilt University indicate that family treatments for depression may lower a child’s risk.

The first study looked at two groups of adults with depression, and their children ages 9 to 15 years old. One group was assigned to cognitive behavioral therapy as a family unit. The other group used written materials that children and parents read on their own.

Children in the first group had half the incidence of depression compared to children in the second. The greatest benefits occurred a year after participation in the two kinds of therapy. The study appeared in the Journal of Consulting Clinical Psychology.

The second study found that cognitive behavioral therapy could help teenagers, but did not necessarily help parents with depression.

“We now have extremely encouraging evidence from two studies conducted at Vanderbilt, that we may be able to reduce the incidence of depression and other mental health problems in children at high risk,” said Prof. Bruce Compas.

The second study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Young people with depression are more likely to do poorly in school and relationships, and they are at higher risk for substance abuse and suicide.

A family intervention program that was developed at Iowa State University Extension will be undergoing an extensive evaluation by a team of researchers from Penn State, San Francisco School of Medicine and the University of California.

A Jan. 5 press release provided the following details about the effort to review what one researcher described as “one of the most promising universal family-based preventative interventions.”

The study, funded by a $3.3-million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and carried out by Penn State researchers, will test changes to an intervention program called “Strengthening Families Program: For Parents and Youth 10-14″ (SFP 10-14) which educates parents and children on ways to enhance their relationships.

Researchers led by Dr. Douglas Coatsworth, associate professor of human development and family studies, are adapting SFP 10-14, which was established to prevent the onset of teen drug use and shows good results. Coatsworth believes the program can be strengthened and could also prevent other poor outcomes in teens, such as risky sexual behavior.

“The Strengthening Families Program is one of the most promising universal family-based preventive interventions,” said Coatsworth. “Research shows that it delays the onset of substance use, improves parenting practices, increases youths’ resistance to peer pressure and reduces aggressive or destructive behavior,” says Coatsworth. “However, most of those studies have been done by the same research group, and independent replication will strengthen the evidence for the program’s efficacy.”

Coatsworth has called the program “one of the most promising universal family-based preventative interventions.” He has seen improvement in parenting skills, delayed onset of teen drug abuse, and overall reductions of aggressive and dangerous behavior.