While crime is on the decline in certain parts of the Nation, a dangerous precursor to crime, teenage drug use, is on the rise. Congress allocated $5 million in FY 1998 for OJJDP to develop a program to support the development and implementation of drug abuse prevention programs that help reduce risk factors and enhance protective factors among adolescents in middle and junior high school. OJJDP awarded a cooperative agreement to the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV) at the University of Colorado at Boulder to coordinate training and technical assistance provided to selected communities implementing the Life Skills Training (LST) program. Developed by Dr. Gil Botvin, the LST program has empirically demonstrated, across many different settings, that it reduces gateway drug use among youth. Although this model has been tested in a number of jurisdictions, OJJDP's training and technical assistance program will foster its replication in a large number of new settings and in diverse jurisdictions including urban, rural, and tribal communities. The LST program is a whole-school-immersion prevention effort that targets all middle and junior high school students with initial intervention in sixth or seventh grade (depending on school structure). In conjunction with CSPV, the LST team will provide training, materials, and technical assistance to each site for a 3-year period. CSPV also will conduct a process evaluation.

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OJJDP Annual Report 1998	October 1999