Would you like a little more background information first?

Click here for the answers to the following questions:

     What is an intervention?

     Is this an experiment?

 

 

What are the components of the student intervention?

 

Coping and Support Training:

 HSTS uses the Coping and Support Training (CAST) curriculum, which has been developed by Reconnecting Youth at the University of Washington.

 

The CAST intervention combines support and training in life skills in a 12 session, 6-week program held in the spring of 8th grade.  The sessions are led by Student Intervention Specialists, who are intensively trained in the CAST curriculum.  Each group consists of 6-8 students.

 

     The intervention incorporates a multi-unit curriculum designed to:

¨      Improve self-esteem building

¨      Enhance decision making

¨      Enhance personal control through management of stress, depression, and anger

¨      Increase social support through communication, and

¨      Prevent recurrence of problems.

 

Booster Groups in Freshman Year:

    The program includes booster sessions with each student after he or she begins high school. These booster sessions are designed to support the student in his or her first year of high school and to reinforce the skills they learned in the 8th grade curriculum to help them improve school performance, mood management (depression and anger), and drug use refusal skills.

 

Student Intervention Specialists will help the students “bond” to their new high schools by:

¨      Helping them connect with academic and extra-curricular activities or programs that interest the students.

¨      Helping the students make other valuable connections with teachers or counselors with whom the students feel comfortable.

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 What are the components of the parent intervention?

 

The parents of students enrolled in the intervention program will be invited to participate in four individual meetings, during which a Parent Intervention Specialist works with the parent to cover a curriculum that focuses on the importance of support and strategies for parenting an adolescent.

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Study Information

High School Transition Study

Overview of the HSTS Intervention