Alcohol and Drug Abuse by Adolescents
Order Description
children who are at-risk for poor developmental outcomes for a variety of reasons. This means that, as professionals working with children and adolescents, we need to provide evidence-based prevention and intervention programs that are designed to decrease risk and promote resilience in children and adolescents. You will be writing a term paper to help familiarize you with that kind of process. Additionally, you will create an evidence-based prevention or intervention program to address the risk factor you focus on in your paper.
Paper Guidelines (40 points):
A. Begin by choosing a developmental topic that is related to risk (e.g., gang membership, high school drop-out, dating violence, etc.). You will be analyzing factors associated with your topic that lead to the negative developmental outcomes and analyzing factors that protect or buffer a child/adolescent from negative developmental outcomes (i.e., promote resilience).
B. Your analysis should clearly indicate which developmental domains are associated with risk factors and which developmental domains are associated with protective factors or resilience. Your analysis should also clearly indicate where the risk and protective factors are located (i.e., at the individual, family, or community level).
C. Your introduction should describe the topic, describe demographic information about the topic, and finish with a general over-view of what the paper will discuss in the following paragraphs. You will need one or two credible sources (e.g., UNICEF, CDC, US Department of Education, US Department of Justice, US Department of Health and Human Services, Kids Count, etc.) to provide the demographic information about the topic. That is, indicate what percent of children/adolescents experience the topic, which children/adolescents are most likely to experience the topic (e.g., gender, age, SES, ethnicity, family structure, etc.).
D. The body of your paper will be based on at least six peer-reviewed, empirical research articles. Two articles can be used to describe what we currently know about the topic from a developmental perspective; at least two of the articles should discuss risk factors; and at least two of the articles should discuss protective factors. It will help to break the body of the paper into three subsections – (a) developmental review of the topic, (b) risk factors; and (c) protective factors. This means you may cite any or all of the six articles in multiple places in the paper. Be sure to describe the subjects, study goals, and specific empirical findings for each study you cite.
I STRONGLY urge you to use PsycInfo as your search tool – you can access it under “Articles and Databases in King Library (https://library.calstate.edu/sanjose/databases). The ChAD LibGuide is also a very useful place to begin your search. The research articles must be published in the last 10 years.
E. Your conclusion should include the following elements: (1) a brief over-view of the key points from the paper related to the domains and the topic; (2) an over-view of the risk factors that lead to negative developmental outcomes; (3) an over-view of protective factors that promote resilience for this topic; and (4) recommendations for applying this knowledge to actually decrease risk and promote resilience in the context of your topic – this will lead you to part II of the assignment – your prevention or intervention program).
F. A full reference list for all the sources cited and discussed in your paper.
G. Some important reminders: (1) your paper should be at least 5-pages of text (does not count the {optional} title page or the {required} reference page); (2) you need at least 6 peer-reviewed empirical research articles and two credible web-sites; (3) all in-text citations and full references should be in correct APA format – no author first names, journal name, or article title in the text of the paper; (4) use a 12-point font and 1-inch margins; (5) do not use direct quotes – paraphrase (i.e., summarize in your own words); (6) do not describe the methods, measures, author affiliation, or the article lit review – information from the article should only include a 1- to 2-sentence description of the subjects and study goals and the relevant results from the empirical study; and (7) integrate (link) your articles rather than listing them.
Intervention/Prevention Program ~ Guidelines (20 points)
A. You will be developing a prevention or an intervention program (choose one, you do not need to create both) that addresses your research paper topic by working to decrease risk factors and to provide or promote protective factors associated with your topic.
B. Your program should be evidence-based; thus you will draw on the research you reviewed in the paper to justify and support your program elements.
C. You should examine and incorporate into your program already existing programs. You will need to discuss at least three programs for your topic (these can be drawn from a mix of academic program evaluations or descriptions and community programs you find on the internet). PLEASE NOTE – you are creating an original program that makes use of already existing program elements, but combines and adds to them in ways that are culturally competent, theory based, and driven by the research on the risk and protective factors associated with the topic.
D. Your program should be comprehensive and detailed. Your write-up of your program should include the following: (1) a brief description of the problem, including citing and discussing some key empirical findings from your paper; (2) a one to two paragraph description of current programs addressing your issue, including a discussion of their strengths and weaknesses; (3) a description of the theoretical framework and evidence that guides and supports your program; (4) a description of goals (risk factors to be addressed, protective factors to be implemented, and outcomes to be achieved) of the program you are designing; (5) a description of the children/adolescents the program targets; and (6) a description of the specific processes and mechanisms that will be used to reduce risk and promote protective factors.
E. Provide a list of references for all the resources discussed in your write-up of the program you designed.
Rubric:
Introduction (0-4)
0 Points 1 Point 2 Points 3 Points 4 Points
No introduction. Vague introduction in one or two sentences and/or uses personal examples. Introduction is short (2- to 3-sentences) but specifically presents the topic. Has one of the following: general or limited demographic information about the topic, or a brief, limited overview of the topic. Introduction provides a comprehensive description of the topic and has either general background information AND a brief, limited over-view of the topic OR it has a more detailed set of demographics but no paper over-view; OR it has a detailed paper over-view but no demographic information. Introduction provides a comprehensive description of the topic, detailed demographic information and a thorough over-view of the paper.
Quality of the Topic Discussion (0-5 Points)
0 points 1 point 2 points 3-4 points 5 points
Does not review developmental information about the topic. Has a vague or minimal review of the topic. Has a general discussion of the topic. Does not go into detail about the topic or cite specific findings. Has a fairly detailed and comprehensive discussion of the topic. Discusses and cites specific findings
Has a detailed and comprehensive discussion of the topic based on specific findings. Critically analyzes the research findings.
Quality of the Discussion of Risk Factors (0-5 points)
0 Points 1 Points 2 Points 3-4 Points 5 Points
Does not specifically discuss risk factors. Vaguely or generally discusses risk factors. Provides a moderately rigorous analysis, which reflects some understanding of risk factors. Attempts to link the topic to the risk factors. May not cite specific findings Provides a fairly rigorous analysis that reflects adequate understanding of risk factors. Generally links the topic and the risk factors. Cites specific findings. Provides a rigorous analysis of empirical findings that reflects strong understanding of risk factors. Clearly and specifically links the topic and the risk factors.
Quality of the Discussion of Protective Factors (0-5 points)
0 Points 1 Points 2 Points 3-4 Points 5 Points
Does not specifically discuss protective factors. Vaguely or generally discusses protective factors. Provides a moderately rigorous analysis, which reflects some understanding of protective factors. Attempts to link the topic to the protective factors. Does not cite specific findings. Provides a fairly rigorous analysis that reflects adequate understanding protective factors. Generally links the topic and the protective factors. Cites specific findings. Provides a rigorous analysis of empirical findings that reflects strong understanding of protective factors. Clearly and specifically links the topic and the protective factors.
Quality of the Research (0-6)
0-1 Points 2 Points 3 Points 4-5 Points 6 Points
Uses personal opinion or relies on non-scholarly sources. Does not have the minimum # of required references Only uses course materials, books, literature reviews, or websites. May not have the required number of references Uses research
articles, but only
discusses the results and/or they are
outdated (more than 10 years old); may use a lot of direct quotes or ‘cited from’ formats. Lists the findings without integration. Websites are not credible. May not have the required number of references. Accurately presents current research findings and includes
the goals of the study (1-2 sentences) OR the subjects (age,
gender, ethnicity,
etc.). The websites are credible. May use some direct quotes. Attempts to integrate the results. Accurately presents current research findings and includes
the goals of the study (1-2 sentences) and the subjects (age, gender, ethnicity, etc. Uses high quality websites. Integrates the results and does not use any direct quotes
Conclusion (0-5)
0 Points 1 Point 2 Points 3-4 Points 5 Points
There is no conclusion. Provides a brief over-view of general (non specific) concepts from the paper. Provides an overview of the key findings in the paper about the topic and briefly discusses them in the context of the two domains May briefly discuss either risk or protective factors. Provides an overview of the key findings in the paper about the topic and discusses them in the context of the two domains. Discusses risk and protective factors and links them to the topic. May vaguely discuss recommendations for applying the findings. Provides an overview of the key findings in the paper about the topic and discusses them in the context of the two domains. Effectively discusses risk and protective factors and links them to the topic. Provides recommendations for applying these findings to promote resilience and decrease risk.
Writing Quality (0-5 Points)
0 Points 1 Point 2-3 Points 4 Points 5 Points
Presents information that is disorganized and very poorly written, full of grammatical flaws. Presents information that is poorly organized and written, with numerous grammatical flaws. Presents information that is moderately organized and written, with a mix of basic grammatical flaws. Presents information that is fairly well organized and written, with few grammatical flaws. Presents information that is very clearly organized and very well written, with small/no grammatical flaws.
APA Formatting (0-5 Points)
0 Points 1 Point 2-3 Points 4 Points 5 Points
Does not use APA format – citations or references. Attempts APA format but has significant errors in formatting both in-text citations and full references. Uses APA format but has some citation errors in both in-text citations and in full references. Uses APA format but has minor citation errors in the in-text citations or in the full references. Use APA format correctly and has no citation errors.