¶ … Life Skills Training prevention program that revolves around material focusing on violence and the media, anger management, and conflict resolution skills. My idea for this program comes from Botvin et al. (2006) who empirically tested the efficacy of this program and found that it can be successfully used to not only prevent tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use but also to prevent violence and delinquency. The Life Skills Training (LST) is a program that was structured "to address several important cognitive, attitudinal, psychological, and social factors related to tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use and violence" (Bovine et al., p 404). People who use it are taught a variety of cognitive-behavioral skills that help them in terms of "problem-solving and decision-making, resisting media influences, managing stress and anxiety, communicating effectively, developing healthy personal relationships, and asserting one's rights "(ibid).

Social scientists (e.g., Elliott, Huizinga, & Ageton, 1985; Hammond & Yung, 1993), consistently, point to the impact of these factors in influencing delinquency. Delinquents, generally, have poor habits that disable them from making the right decisions; they are unable to resist media influence sometimes causing them to steal in order to acquire the good when they have fewer resources to do so in the normal way. The media also may stimulate them to the desire to appear more macho than they really are. They find it difficult to manage the stress and anxiety of their environment; are unable to communicate effectively; may find it challenging to develop a healthy social support network; and, finally, have difficulty in asserting their right driving them to violence as substitute.

LST not only...

LST also connects its strategies to substance use and violence in particular; therefore, students are, for instance, taught how to be assertive in situations when pressure is imposed on them to employ drugs. They are also taught anger management and conflict resolution skills
Botvin et al. (2006) tested the efficacy of this program on 4,858 sixth-grade students from 41 New York City public and parochial schools. The sample was 51% boys and 49% girls and was largely African-American and Hispanic. The sample was largely economically disadvantaged youth with many of them living in single-parent households.

2,374 students from 20 experimental schools received the LST program whilst 2,484 students from 21 control schools received the standard health education curriculum that was common in New York schools. Questionnaires were given to students following completion by researchers who were of the same ethnic persuasion as the students. Violence and delinquent behaviors were assessed by questionnaire following certain measures. The project staff monitored the implementation of the program, whilst trained staff observed the teachers and observed how much of the material was actually accomplished within the lessons.

Analysis of the data discovered that students' verbal aggression, physical aggression, fighting, and delinquent behaviors were all relatively high when the study was first allocated (at baseline). T-tests also showed that levels of violence and substance use…