Reconnecting Youth Prevention Research Program

About the RY Curriculum

Reconnecting Youth: A Peer Group Approach to Building Life Skills (RY) is an 80-lesson curriculum that has been proven effective in helping high-risk youth in grades 9-12 raise their GPAs and manage their anger, while decreasing drug use, depression, and suicide risk. The research-based RY curriculum is divided into four major units: Self-Esteem Enhancement, Decision-Making, Personal Control, and Interpersonal Communication. It is unique in that it is a comprehensive, sustained, semester-long intervention that integrates small-group work and life-skills training models to effectively enhance the personal and social protective factors of high-risk youth. A variety of school personnel throughout the nation have been trained by program staff to successfully implement the curriculum.

Awards

Under Dr. Eggert's leadership, Reconnecting Youth has garnered numerous honors and awards including the following:

• Selection in Drug Strategies' publication,  Making the Grade:  A Guide to School Drug Prevention Programs, as the only high school (grades 9-12) drug prevention curriculum to receive an "A" grade (1999);
• Designation in the White House's First Annual Report on School Safety (1998) as one of the top-tier, demonstrated programs for working with high-risk adolescents;
• Selection in Drug Strategies' publication, Safe Schools, Safe Students, as one of only five research-based youth violence prevention programs in the country to receive an "A+" grade (1998);
• Recommendation by the U. S. Department of Education through the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program as successful in preventing drug use and violent behavior among youth (1998);
• And recognition by NIDA as one of the year's top three prevention programs (1996).

In addition RY is featured in NIDA's video Coming Together on Prevention, and for her work on RY, Dr. Eggert was named an Innovator by the National Educational Association (1999).

Obtaining the RY Curriculum

To obtain a copy of the curriculum, Reconnecting Youth: A Peer Group Approach to Building Life Skills (2nd edition), contact RY's publisher:

Solution Tree (formerly NES)
304 West Kirkwood Avenue, Suite 2
Bloomington, IN 47404-5132
Phone toll-free: 1-800-733-6786
Fax: 812-336-7790
Website: http://www.solution-tree.com/

RY Inc. Program Information and Training Contact:

Merridy Ruggiero

Information Coordinator

merridy@reconnectingyouth.com

Voicemail: 425-861-1177

Website:http://www.reconectingyouth.com

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