Individual and Family Motivational Interviews for Substance Using Truant Teens

Individual and Family Motivational Interviews for Substance Using Truant Teens

This application will provide a test of one potential model for adding substance use assessment and brief intervention into a truancy court program. The primary goal of this study is to determine whether a motivational intervention will reduce substance use among adolescents referred to truancy court for school attendance problems. In this treatment development application, an open trial with 20 families referred by truancy court will first be conducted. This trial will be used to adapt an existing motivational intervention to include material relevant to school attendance and performance. Then 100 families participating in the Rhode Island Truancy Court Program with adolescents between the ages of 13-16 years who report using substances will be randomly assigned to receive the experimental intervention plus standard truancy court procedures or psychoeducation plus standard truancy court procedures. The 2-session intervention protocol consists of an individual motivational interview plus the Family Check-Up (Dishion & Kavanagh, 2003), a family based motivational interview. The experimental protocol provides a thorough assessment of both individual and family strengths and weaknesses with respect to substance use prevention and school attendance/performance. Follow-up interviews will be conducted at 3 and 6 months.

Inclusion Criteria:

1. between the ages of 13-16 at the start of the project and living at home with at least one parent/guardian,
2. t- score of 70 or above on one of the diagnostic-oriented scales (internalizing or externalizing problems) on the Child Behavior Checklist (i.e. reach the clinical cut-off),
3. the child must report 6 or more incidences of substance use in the last 90 days,
4. parental consent and child assent are obtained.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. adolescent meets diagnostic criteria for substance dependence suggesting need for more intensive services,
2. the family is not able to speak and understand English or Spanish well enough to complete study procedures.