The Creating
Lasting Family Connections program is a powerful and well-structured
curriculum for family enhancement, enriching positive parenting skills and
positive youth development. Participating youth and/or parents are
encouraged to improve their personal growth through increasing
self-awareness, expression of feelings, interpersonal communication, and
self-disclosure. Participants are taught social skills, refusal skills,
and appropriate alcohol and drug knowledge and healthy beliefs, which
provide a strong defense against environmental risk factors that can lead
to negative outcomes for youth. The Creating Lasting Family
Connections program also provides parents and other caring adults with
family management, family enhancement, and communications training. All
participants are provided opportunities to practice these skills in a safe
peer-group setting.
The Creating Lasting Family Connections
program consists of 6 separate modules. Three modules are for adults
(parents) and there are similar modules for youth.
The parent
modules are:
Developing Positive Parental Influences,
Raising Resilient Youth, and
Getting
Real.
The 3 youth modules are:
Developing a Positive
Response,
Developing Independence and Responsibility,
and
Getting Real.
Each of the 3 individual parent
trainings is a 5-6 session module with each session lasting from 1-1/2 to
2-1/2 hours depending on breaks and the possibility of including a family
meal. Each of the individual youth trainings is a 5-6 session module with
sessions lasting 1 to 2-1/2 hours in length again depending on snacks,
breaks and/or a family meal being provided. (Sometimes it is very helpful
for recruitment if families are provided the opportunity of sharing a meal
in conjunction with the program.)
For maximum effectiveness,
parents and youth are each involved simultaneously in their own separate
three-module track lasting for 15 sessions followed by 3 or more sessions
where parents and youth may be involved in combined practice
sessions.
The modules for parent and youth are paired as
follows:
- Developing Positive Parental Influences (for parents) is paired with
Developing a Positive Response (for youth)
- Raising Resilient Youth (for parents) is paired with Developing
Independence and Responsibility (for youth)
- Getting Real (for parents) is paired with Getting Real (for youth)
The CLFC program
provides parents and children with strong defenses against environmental
risk factors by teaching appropriate skills for personal growth, family
enhancement, and interpersonal communication, including refusal skills for
both parents and youth.
The CLFC curriculum is designed to:
- Increase communication and bonding between parents and children
- Decrease uncontrolled behavior (i.e., reduce violence, delinquency
and unhealthy practices)
- Improve refusal skills
- Foster greater use of community services in resolving family and
personal problems.
The CLFC curriculum
is also designed to increase the following specific resiliency
factors:
Youth
- Refusal skills
- Bonding with mother and father
- Honest communication
- Participation in family rule setting
- Bonding with community
- Social skills
Family
- Appropriate parental substance use knowledge and beliefs
- Appropriate parental substance using behavior
- Family management skills (including family meetings)
- Bonding with youth
- Involvement of youth in family rule setting (both substance related
and not)
- Help-seeking for family and personal problems
- Appropriate expectations and consequences
- Family stability, harmony, cohesiveness, and positive communication
- Family recreational and community activities
Community
- Youth and parent perceptions of community support
- Access to health and social services
- Community empowerment
- Responsiveness and flexibility of social service provision
- Community service
School
- School bonding by youth
- School attendance
- Positive school climate
Ted N. Strader is the founder and Executive Director of
the Council on Prevention and Education: Substances. Mr. Strader has
published books, curriculum materials, films, professional journal
articles and has presented papers, keynote addresses, seminars and
workshops at many local, state and national conferences on drug abuse. His
research on solvents led to new legislation in the Commonwealth of
Kentucky and has been used as a model in several other states. 
