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Part II:
Status of Research-Based Programs
Programs Beginning When Children are in Middle and/or High School
II. Say It Straight: Youth-Centered Communication Skills Training
Dr. Paula Englander Golden, Institute for Studies in Addiction
University of North Texas, Denton, Texas
The following review was written by Benard and is reprinted here with her permission.
Say It Straight (SIS) is a communication skills program grounded in developmental principles. In addition to training in interpersonal communication skills--honest assertiveness and peer support, "it provides an opportunity to explore intrapersonal communication, that is, connecting to one's internal resources and discovering one's deepest yearnings, such as the wish to be significant, to be valued and loved, and to be capable of loving and valuing others" (Englander-Golden, et al., 1996).
Since 1982, Englander-Golden has been conducting evaluations on SIS effectiveness in the prevention of alcohol and drug abuse, HIV/AIDs, violence, and delinquency. In 1986, she reported a longitudinal study on alcohol and drug-related school suspensions among trained students in sixth through ninth grades versus untrained students. She found "not a single" alcohol- or drug-related school suspension during an entire school year in one middle school where an almost totally trained milieu was attained in the first month of the 1984-85 school year (1986). In a 1987 study, she extended SIS training to high school students and measured juvenile police offenses. Over a 1 ½ year follow-up, the untrained students had about 4 ½ times as many juvenile criminal offenses as the trained students. In 1996, she published the results of SIS training with almost 3,000 students in grades three through twelve, as well as 230 parents and other adults living in high-risk environments. All participants-trained by trainers who had only a four to six day training-showed significant increases in behavioral intentions to implement constructive decisions in difficult situations and feel more at ease doing so.
Based on the principles of Dr. Virginia Satir, SIS focuses on building honest, assertive communications skills through extensive role-playing of interpersonal situations in which students find themselves. Examples of such situations include, "How do I say no to a friend? How do I say 'I have quit' to a group of friends? How do I say 'I don't like what I see you doing' to a friend?" The training is action-oriented and uses visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modalities to involve people with different learning styles. Communication processes such as placating and blaming, being sarcastic, passive-aggressive, disruptive, irrelevant, or 'spacing out', lecturing, discounting feelings, and--on the positive side--honoring oneself and others are first explored by body sculpting-placing one's body into physical postures that intensify, make overt and concrete the internal experience of these communications. Each sculpture (action) is accompanied by reflection and dialog. These communications are then embedded in movies that portray difficult interpersonal situations. The movies are developed by participants who play parts in them as actors. Participants discover how they feel and the effect they have on others as they communicate in different ways. Strengthening of personal and social responsibility is facilitated as participants practice prosocial behaviors in difficult situations.
Unique features of SIS training include:
- Flexibility to be applied across settings (churches, schools, prisons, support groups, treatment agencies, community-based organizations, etc.) and across age groups and roles (students, parents, teachers, youth workers)
- Training entire classrooms or schools, rather than selected students who have been labeled in negative ways, gives the message that everyone can improve their communications skills, thus creating bonds rather than separations among people.
- Focusing on solutions, on improving coping skills, on one's strengths and resources. At no time during the training is factual information about alcohol or drugs given.
- Giving ownership and responsibility for the training to participants by letting them choose the content of the movies, that is, letting them co-create their training. This not only assures cultural, ethnic, developmental, and gender relevancy, it respects the participants' freedom. According to Englander-Golden et. al. (1986), "Nowhere [in SIS training] are students told what their deep wishes of new choices should be... Since freedom is one of the most important values to young people, the trainers minimize the risk of rebellious reaction to the training by avoiding debate and respecting the students' freedom."
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