Brenna H. Bry - US grants

The study will examine the three-year impact upon drug use and grades of providing problem-solving family therapy as a component of an established middle school-based early intervention program for working class seventh and eighth graders who exhibit drug abuse risk factors such as poor school performance, poor attendance, and frequent discipline referrals. In the school where the research will be conducted, all seventh and eighth graders whose school records show poor performance and discipline referrals are assigned to behaviorally-oriented small groups that meet regularly with trained teachers during the school day for one year "to help the students do better in school." For this proposed study, letters will be sent to the parents of a randomly selected half of the early intervention students announcing that free family counseling is available in the school this year from the university psychological clinic. Both the early intervention program and the problem-solving family therapy will have booster sessions during the second year of the study, and the third year will be follow-up. With parent permission, the substance use of all of the early intervention students will be monitored monthly throughout the three year study in confidential, independent interviews yielding unique, daily records of high risk middle schoolers use that can be used in both single cases and group comparison assessments of the impact of family therapy. Grades will be a second dependent variable. Because pilot work indicates that the following process variables may be involved in reducing drug use, the adolescents' descriptions of their school's environment, their descriptions of their home environments, and their reasons for using or not using marijuana will also be assessed at five month intervals. Findings may shed some light on the mechanisms involved in both problem- solving family therapy and adolescent drug abuse.