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Program Description

Overview Girls Incorporated (Girls Inc.) is a national organization committed to positive youth development and inspiring all girls to be strong, smart, and boldSM. Girls Inc. developed its Friendly PEERsuasionSM program to help girls acquire knowledge, skills, and support systems to avoid substance abuse. The program uses a social-influence and life-skills model of prevention, using a combination of adult leadership and peer reinforcement to develop the ability for girls to identify and respond critically to messages and social pressures that encourage substance abuse.
Start Date 1988
Scope national
Type after school
Location urban, suburban, rural
Setting public school, community-based organization, private facility, recreation center
Participants girls ages 11–14 (middle school)
Number of Sites/Grantees In 2001, 126 Girls Inc. affiliates offered programming in over 1,400 sites in 37 states. Fifty-seven of these organizations offered Friendly PEERsuasion.
Number Served 525,000 annually (in 2001, 12,000 young women and children participated in Friendly PEERsuasion)
Components The first phase of the program, as evaluated, consists of 14 hour-long sessions facilitated by a trained adult leader. These sessions contain hands-on, interactive activities such as games, group discussions, and role-plays, helping students to: (1) learn about the short-term and long-term effects of substance abuse, (2) experience healthy ways to manage stress, (3) learn to recognize media and peer pressures to use drugs, and (4) practice skills for making responsible decisions about licit and illicit drug use and prepare to become peer leaders. After completing this core curriculum, participants are certified as PEERsuadersSM.

In the second phase, small teams of PEERsuaders plan and implement eight to ten half-hour sessions of substance abuse prevention activities for PEERsuade-MEsSM (children ages six through ten). Working with adult leaders, PEERsuaders draw on skills and activities introduced in the first phase and their own experiences and creativity to present factual information and to model and practice skills, attitudes, and behaviors related to substance abuse prevention.
Funding Level N/A
Funding Sources Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, IBM Corporation, MetLife Foundation, the Nancy Reagan Foundation, Scaife Family Foundation, the W. T. Grant Foundation


Evaluation

Overview The Friendly PEERsuasion program used a random assignment evaluation design in four demonstration sites to test the impacts of the program in reducing substance use among girls. Chaiken, Maltz, and Smith evaluated the program in one site in Birmingham, Alabama where the program was found to be implemented closest to the Girls Inc. design. However this site implemented the program during the regular school day and so is not profiled here. Smith and Kennedy evaluated the program's impacts across all four demonstration sites, the remaining three of which all offered the program during after school hours. Weiss and Nicholson described the Friendly PEERsuasion program, its evaluations, and these evaluations' findings. (See Reports Available below for more information on these publications.)
Evaluator Christine Smith and Stephen D. Kennedy, Abt Associates
Evaluations Profiled Friendly PEERsuasion Against Substance Use: The Girls Incorporated Model and Evaluation
Evaluations Planned Pre/post evaluations of the second edition of Friendly PEERsuasion (2002), based on lessons learned from the pilot evaluation, continue on the affiliate level.
Report Availability Weiss, F. L., & Nicholson, H. J. (1998). Friendly PEERsuasion against substance use: The Girls Incorporated model and evaluation. Drugs & Society, 12(1/2), 7–22.

Chaiken, M. R., Maltz, M. D., & Smith, C. (1990). Evaluation of Girls Incorporated's Friendly PEERsuasion program: A push in the right direction. Indianapolis, IN: Girls Incorporated National Resource Center.

Smith, C., & Kennedy, S. D. (1991). Final impact evaluation of the Friendly PEERsuasion targeted substance abuse education program of Girls Incorporated: A report on four demonstration sites. Indianapolis, IN: Girls Incorporated National Resource Center.

Contacts

Evaluation Faedra Lazar Weiss, M.A.H.L.
Research Associate
Girls Incorporated National Resource Center
441 W. Michigan Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202-3287
Tel: 317-634-7546 ext. 118
Fax: 317-634-3024
Email: fweiss@girls-inc.org
Program Sarah Riester
Program Associate, Healthy Girls Initiative
Girls Incorporated National Resource Center
441 W. Michigan Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202-3287
Tel: 317-634-7546 ext. 139
Fax: 317-634-3024
Email: nationalprogramdept@girls-inc.org
Profile Updated June 6, 2003

Evaluation: Friendly PEERsuasion Against Substance Use: The Girls Incorporated Model and Evaluation


Evaluation Description

Evaluation Purpose To test the program's effectiveness in increasing participants' avoidance of substance use and leaving of situations where peers were using substances.
Evaluation Design Experimental: Four sites were chosen as demonstration sites on the basis of their high quality program services, organizational capacity, and service to young teens and children considered at high risk of early substance use. Care was taken to include sites serving girls of various ethnic and racial backgrounds and living in a variety of high-risk situations. These sites were Birmingham, Alabama, Clearwater, Florida, Rapid City, South Dakota, and Worcester, Massachusetts. Each site was asked to recruit at least 100 girls between the ages of 11 and 14 to participate in the Friendly PEERsuasion program.

To avoid ethical problems of withholding programming, the evaluation employed a delayed entry design. Approximately 40% of girls completing the pre-program survey were assigned randomly to fall participation (treatment group) while the remainder were assigned to the control group, which were assigned to participate in Friendly PEERsuasion the following spring. The beginning sample included 152 girls assigned to the treatment group and 202 to the control group.

Attrition was 18% for the first post-program survey and higher yet for the following two surveys. Evaluators found no evidence of differential attrition between the treatment and control groups. Attrition in both groups, however, was related to two background factors: seeing someone selling drugs near the respondent's home and past cigarette smoking. That is, students reporting seeing someone selling drugs and students who smoked cigarettes were more likely to not be included in the post-program survey.
Data Collection Methods Surveys/Questionnaires: Four questionnaires were administered to all study participants. The pre-program questionnaire (September 1988) when neither group had participated, the first post-program questionnaire (November 1988) when the treatment group had received the Friendly PEERsuasion training, the second post-program questionnaire (February 1989) when the treatment group had both received the training and had also taught the PEERsuade-MEs, and the third post-program questionnaire (May 1989), when both treatment and control groups had received the program. These questionnaires collected demographic background information as well as background information related to substance abuse risks and outcome-related self-reports of substance use and reactions to situations involving substance use.
Data Collection Timeframe Data were collected between September 1988 and May 1989.


Findings:
Summative/Outcome Findings

Prevention Participation in Friendly PEERsuasion was significantly related (p=0.10) to delayed onset of drinking among participants who reported never having drunk alcohol prior to the program.

Friendly PEERsuasion participants who reported having already initiated drinking alcohol prior to the program reported lower incidence of drinking at the post-program periods, although this difference was not statistically significant (p=0.12).

The estimated effect of the program if both groups had participated in the program during the fall 1988 would be to halve the incidence of drinking from the actual rate of over 10% to under 5% (p=0.05).

The effectiveness of Friendly PEERsuasion on delaying alcohol use persisted over the study period. Among participants who reported never having drunk alcohol at the pre-program questionnaire, 36% of the control group reported first use of alcohol on any post-program questionnaire. The estimated effect of program participation was a 14 percentage point reduction in the likelihood of drinking during the study period (p=0.02).

Participation in Friendly PEERsuasion led some girls to report leaving gatherings where others were drinking alcohol (p=0.05).

A lower percentage of fall participants reported favorable attitudes toward drinking alcohol after completing PEERsuader training than did their peers who had not yet begun PEERsuader training, although this difference was not statistically significant (p=.20).

Younger girls who participated earlier were less likely to begin using harmful substances during the study period (p=0.06). Older girls reported similar behaviors regardless of earlier or later participation.

 

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