Guide to Effective Programs
for Children and Youth

PALS Skills Training

OVERVIEW

The PALS Skills Training program attempts to reduce drug use by applying cognitive and behavioral training techniques to help adolescents improve their social skills. An experimental evaluation of the program found that it had mainly detrimental impacts. Adolescents who participated in the program, especially those who did not use drugs at baseline, were significantly more likely to use drugs at the 3-month follow-up than adolescents in the control group.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

Target population: Adolescent females at risk for drug abuse

The PALS Skills Training program uses cognitive and behavioral training techniques to help teens improve their social skills and restructure their social networks. The program attempts to help teens refuse requests to engage in high-risk behaviors, appropriately handle criticism, spend more time with positive peers and less time with negative peers, and develop strong problem solving skills. The program utilizes a variety of teaching techniques, including providing scientific facts, modeling, role play, and homework assignments. The program is delivered by Master’s level social workers or health educators to small groups of 8 to 12 adolescents. Sessions last for 90 minutes and occur once a week for 16 weeks.

EVALUATION(S) OF PROGRAM

Palinkas, L.A., Atkins, C.J., Miller, C., & Ferreira, D. (1996). Social skills training for drug prevention in high-risk female adolescents. Preventive Medicine, 25, 692-701.

Evaluated population: The study evaluated 296 female adolescents, of whom 38 percent were African American, 46 percent were Mexican American, 9 percent were non-Hispanic whites, and 8 percent were Asian and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, or others. The mean age of participants was 16 years old. Forty-one percent of teens came from single parent homes and the median annual household income was $16,000. Eleven percent of the participants had dropped out of school, and 30 percent were pregnant or parenting. All participants were at risk for drug use based on a screening assessment.

Approach: Participants were recruited from medical offices and schools and by community professionals. All participants attended a 90-minute normative education class once a week that covered issues related to sexuality, contraception, STDs, substance use, sexual assault and domestic violence. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to receive the PALS Skills Training curriculum in addition to the normative education class. Half of all participants were randomly assigned to receive case management services as well, but those results are not reported in this study.

Participants were assessed at five time points: pre-intervention, mid-intervention, post-intervention, 3 months post-intervention, and 12 months post-intervention. Assessments included self-report measures of drug use and urine toxicology screens, which were used to improve the validity of self-reports. Only results from the pre-intervention, post-intervention, and 3 months post-intervention assessments are reported in this study.

Results: The program had mainly detrimental impacts. At three months post-intervention, adolescents who participated in the PALS Skills Training program were significantly less likely to report using alcohol (OR = 0.9), but significantly more likely to report using any drug (OR = 1.3). For adolescents who did not use drugs at baseline, those who participated in the intervention were significantly more likely to use alcohol (OR = 1.2), marijuana (OR = 2.9), tobacco (OR = 0.8), other illicit drugs (OR = 0.8), and any drug (OR = 2.0) at the 3-month follow-up.

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

References

Palinkas, L.A., Atkins, C.J., Miller, C., & Ferreira, D. (1996). Social skills training for drug prevention in high-risk female adolescents. Preventive Medicine, 25, 692-701.

KEYWORDS: adolescents (12-17), female only, adolescent mothers, high-risk, black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, clinic/provider-based, skills training, tobacco use, marijuana/illicit/ prescription drugs, alcohol use

Program information last updated 9/16/11.