STAGE 5. Defining the action plan

What steps should be completed?

Step 1: Specify intervention actions

EARLY CHILDHOOD PREVENTION INTERVENTIONS (APPROXIMATELY 0 TO 5 YEARS OF AGE)*

Educational interventions for pre-school children with social disadvantages

Improving the cognitive and social skills of socially disadvantaged pre-school children using educational interventions, combined with offering socioeconomic support for their families, helps reduce drug use and other hazardous behaviours at the end of adolescence. It also protects mental health and improves children’s social inclusion and academic success. Studies that provide evidence for this type of interventions all come from the USA.

Professional support visits to pregnant women or first-time mothers in high-risk situations

Programmes based on visiting pregnant women and/or first-time mothers in situations of high social risk, regularly and over a long period, to offer them professional support to raise their children and advice on legal, health, housing and work issues, amongst others, can prevent drug use and be cost-effective. The evidence available comes from the USA.

There is also some evidence that integrated addiction and mental health treatment (when necessary), suited to the needs of these patients, and accompanied by guidance on raising the child and the affective relationship with it, has a positive effect on the child’s emotional and behavioural development.

 

* Based on: International Standards on Drug Use Prevention (UNODC):