Project

Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP)

Start Dates: 1981

PI(s): Marina Epstein

Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Burlington Northern Foundation, Safeco Insurance Company

Project Description

SSDP began in 1981 to test strategies for reducing childhood risk factors for school failure, drug abuse, and delinquency. First graders in five Seattle schools were assigned to intervention or control classrooms. Each year through the elementary grades parents and teachers in intervention classrooms learned how to actively engage children in learning, strengthen bonding to family and school, and encourage children’s positive behaviors. In 1985, when the original first graders entered the fifth grade, the panel was expanded to 808 students from 18 Seattle elementary schools. These participants and their parents have been interviewed regularly since 1985.

The study has produced important findings on the development of alcohol abuse and dependence, on risk factors for school dropout, violence, and gang membership, and on long-term effects of preventive intervention in the elementary grades. The Seattle Social Development Project has generated many studies drawing on the same panel of participants.