WORKING TECHNIQUE WITH PARENTS OF PUPILS IN SECONDARY SCHOOL ON PRIMARY AND SECONDARY PREVENTION OF DRUG ADDICTIONS

For Ukraine, as well as other post-Soviet countries, the educational strategy of primary and secondary prevention of drug addiction is relevant. In Germany and the states of Western Europe, this strategy dominated 20–30 years ago. According to our colleagues, who sounded at the final conference in the framework of the project “Prevention of illegal drug distribution among young people: organizational and methodological aspects”, enlightenment did not in the end prevent the epidemic process. Around the issue of the efficacy and content of primary prevention even a discussion arose between scientists representing Western and Eastern Europe. Indeed, the spread of narcotics is similar to the flu epidemic, which does not count with borders, depends little on government actions or the type of a country's political system, and has its own laws. Nevertheless, enlightenment is necessary, because it gives a chance to say the “conscious” part of society, so to make the right choice and act in accordance with the recommendations of specialists. If enlightenment in the West at one time saved several million young people from harmful addiction, then it has already justified itself. Unfortunately, the calculations of those who escaped the bitter fate thanks to the correct advice and actions of parents, teachers can not be directly counted. But since most of the population in Western countries is not subject to drug addiction, it can be assumed that there are quite a few people in the “healthy” half who were protected by primary prevention. In recent years, in the post-Soviet countries, separate attempts have been made to establish primary prevention, including in schools, educational institutions, and relevant literature has been published [1, 2]. However, these efforts are fragmented and poorly provided methodically.

Our sociological studies, including a retrospective survey of men of different age generations [3], showed an almost complete lack of their own experience of contact with drugs in the older age groups. Accordingly, moms and dads, grandparents of modern schoolchildren know only general information about the drug problem. This makes it difficult to use a family resource, the full inclusion of parents in the system of primary and secondary prevention. It seems to us that the initial educational work is appropriate to build in systems such as "media - parents - children" or "school - parents - children." The first element in these systems plays the role of the expert subsystem. It performs a generalizing function, that is, it sets the general ideological and informational orientation. The second element is basic; parents are assigned the role of prevention subjects. And the third element - children - serves as an object of prevention.

The main idea implemented in the framework of this project was to use the high school, or rather its oldest institution - the parent meeting - as an expert subsystem endowed with another important quality - the organizational effect. Indeed, parent meetings usually attend 10–20 parents, and with a certain preparation, this number can increase to at least 80% of the number of students. The problem is that the modern school is actually not ready to competently carry out preventive work. School administration in most cases, as well as district or city structures in charge of secondary education, do not refuse preventive work to prevent drug addiction and alcoholism, but refer to teacher unpreparedness, lack of teaching aids and other technical problems. The project focused on overcoming such obstacles. The task was to create real tools for mass preventive work that can be used, in particular, in the framework of parent meetings.

As a result of the methodological work of the project participants, it was possible to create three tools:

• The scenario of the parent meeting on the topic "How to protect a child from drugs."
• Parenting Brochure "Our Children and Drugs: Advice to Parents".
• Video "Attention! The threat of drugs.

The availability of tools for working with parents allows you to implement several alternative strategies for holding meetings.

1. The session is conducted by a specialist , guided by a prepared scenario or by varying the order of communication depending on the composition of the parents and their reaction. Such experience was gained in the framework of testing the methodology, when classes were conducted by project participants. This is the most effective way to activate the parents, but it cannot have a sufficiently wide coverage. To consolidate knowledge, parents receive and take home brochures entitled “Our Children and Drugs: Advice of Specialists”. The structure of the brochure is as follows:

• The introduction is “Six Notes That It is Good to Know,” where some theses are formulated that increase interest in the topic and make it easier for parents to read further.
• The “first trial” is a description, in the opinion of the authors of the pamphlet, of a key event in the career of each addict and the factors influencing the first trial.
• "Signals" are signs (behavioral, physiological, material) of drug use by children.
• "Pedagogical counseling" - tips on how to behave moms and dads, faced with the fact of drug use by their children.
• “Consultation of a narcologist” on the types of drugs, drug addiction as a disease and ways to overcome it.
• "Legal advice" on the rules of criminal and administrative law prohibiting drug trafficking and sanctions established for the violation of these rules.

The volume and structure of the brochure are quite sufficient to draw primary knowledge, not distorted by popular stereotypes and legends, which exist a lot in everyday consciousness.

2. The lesson is led by the teacher (class teacher), based on the script and content of the brochure. In this case, have the advantage of a biology teacher or those who teach "Fundamentals bezpeki zhtєєdіyalnost". On the one hand, this method allows you to do the work on the revitalization of a family resource a truly mass phenomenon. During the school year, you can "cover" almost all parents. If the school administration, management structures express a practical interest in carrying out such work, then the relevant topics of parent meetings are included in the school plans and activities are carried out systematically. But on the other hand, such an approach can also cause a negative reaction of teachers, objections based on the fact that teachers are not sufficiently competent in matters of drug distribution, prevention and have no right to give their advice to parents. Moreover, the topic is very sensitive and here it is necessary to be guided by the principle “do no harm”. Of course, the teacher may confine himself to small general notes and calls for vigilance, after which he distribute brochures and at this end his mission.

3. View the video . The strategy assumes that the school has the appropriate technical means, and the teachers do not risk taking on the function of teaching the parents. Work with parents in this case also ends with the distribution of brochures. Video "Attention! The Danger of Drugs was originally conceived as a sounding brochure. His semantic outline coincides with the structural parts of the brochure, the basis of which consists of interviews with the project participants. But in the process of working on the film, it was possible to expand its content through video clips of interviews with drug addicts, filming of seriously ill drug addicts and alcoholics, and other subjects. The positive side of the video is that it retains the principle of communication with experts. This can have a positive effect on parents' consciousness and increase the credibility of the information. Duration of the video 40 minutes. This is not enough to cover the content of all the issues, but it is quite enough to convey key theses and informational positions. The presence of candid interviews with drug addicts (all young people gave their consent to video filming and the use of footage materials for anti-drug propaganda) strengthens both trusting relationships and creates a certain emotional mood. Drug addicts tell about their fate, tell about the experience of taking drugs and the consequences, convey the sensations caused by the disease, warn against repeating their path. These stories, on the one hand, illustrate the theses and positions that the project participants express in the film, and on the other, they create a certain emotional background necessary to think about the drug problem, the present and the future of their children. The content of the plots allows parents to project the situation on their family and children.

Each of the three proposed strategies can be implemented in the presence of certain technical conditions and its effectiveness depends on the performers. The simplest strategy is the third option. The presence in the school of even one set of TV and a VCR allows, during a year (or two years), to carry out appropriate work in all classes, using the sequence, schedule of thematic parenting activities.

In general, such work to revitalize the family resource is a form of educational program, it is dictated by the current situation and is necessary in the light of the impending threat of drugs and the lag of the minds of most parents from the "spirit of the age." Its value should not be overestimated, but at the same time and in no case can not be ignored. This is a chance to withdraw the threat from at least some young people, although it will not stop the epidemic. Compared to the general problem of drugs, the prepared tools do not look like a significant contribution. But they are very noticeable in comparison with the means of prevention that Ukrainian schools actually have today, not to mention ordinary parents. It is the latter circumstance that puts on the agenda a wide circulation of both brochures and videos. Such methodical packages should be in service with every school in Ukraine.

Literature

1. Prevention of adolescent and juvenile addiction / Under. ed. S.V. Berezina, K.S. Lysetsky, I. B. Oreshnikova. - M., 2000.
2. Belogurov S. B. Popular about drugs and drug addicts. - 2nd ed., Corr. and add. - SPb, 2000.
3. Young people and drugs (sociology of drug addiction) / Ed. V. A. Sobolev, I. P. Ruschenko. - Kharkov: Torsing, 2000. - 432 p.