Trans-adaption of successful cigarette smoking intervention to randomised school-based cannabis intervention trial

Despite the emergence of cannabis use as a public health issue of significance in the 21st Century, no school-based interventions specifically addressing cannabis use have been reported in the literature. The prevalence of adolescent cannabis use has risen during the 1990s while the age of onset has decreased. This three-year trial seeks to trans-adapt a successful school-based cigarette smoking program underpinned by harm minimisation (HM) theory (including abstinence messages), into a school-based cannabis intervention trial. This innovative intervention will be compared to the largely abstinence-based drug use prevention activities currently used in W A. The first and second years of the project have been successful in establishing and conducting this school-based cluster randomised control trial. In summary, under the direction of an experienced management team, the project has recruited 24 Perth metropolitan high schools - the required number to provide sufficient power to detect hypothesised differences between intervention and comparison students. Within these schools, active parental consent to participate in data collection for the project was obtained from over 3,300 students after the initial letter and two reminders to parents (69% consent rate). Baseline data were collected from nearly 3,100 students (93% of those eligible), 2953 students at post-test 1 and 2701 students at the end of the second year of intervention (Post-test 2). In addition, data were collected at each of these time points from English and Health Education teachers, and school principals

Reducing the effects of bullying among Aboriginal children living in rural Western Australia: annual report

It is unknown how Aboriginal children and adults conceptualize childhood bullying and what school/community intervention programs are appropriate. The Solid Kids, Solid Schools project will use a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods to develop culturally informed and determined understandings of bullying among Aboriginal children. These understandings can then be used to formatively develop a sustainable school and community-based bullying prevention and reduction program with strategies identified by Aboriginal people for use in schools in the Yamaji region or Midwest, Murchison Education District of Western Australia. According to the funding proposal a Steering Committee was established to provide project guidance and feedback for the duration of the Project. In depth community consultation highlighted the need for modifications to the Project study design. The recommended methodological changes allow the Project to collect seeping data that will contextualise bullying experiences among Aboriginal children attending primary schools and high schools throughout the Mid West Murchison District, or Yamaji region. Collection of seeping data will be conducted in six schools and three community groups and commenced in November 2006

Optimising school nurse involvement in youth based tobacco control programs: presented to the Western Australian Health Promotion Foundation

A significant proportion of youth smoke regularly, placing them at risk of addiction to cigarette smoking. It is known that adolescence is a critical period for the establishment of adult drug use behaviours. The key focus for this research program is the investigation of interventions addressing adolescent smoking cessation, with a particular emphasis on School Nurse involvement. The research program aims to provide capacity building benefits at three levels: to secondary school nurses, to two post-graduate students, as well as school health promotion /smoking prevention/cessation practitioners and researchers. Ultimately this project may add previously underused but well trained, highly credible resources to efforts to decrease the use of and harm associated with tobacco amongst Western Australian youth