Program Goals

The goals of Too Good for Drugs (TGFD) 6th Grade are:

• Increased social and emotional competency (skills)
• Enhanced personal efficacy
• Reduced positive attitudes toward ATOD use
• Increased healthy perceived norms regarding ATOD use
• Increased perceived harm/risk regarding ATOD use
• Reduced intention to use ATOD
• Increased attachment to the school/instructor

Logic Model

View the Logic Model for Too Good for Drugs (TGFD) 6th Grade.

Essential Components

The essential components of Too Good for Drugs (TGFD) 6th Grade include:

• Youth participate in an interactive classroom setting designed to instruct, review, and reinforce the skills and social constructs built into the lessons. Each lesson builds upon the previous to stack the learning and continue to reinforce for retention and immediate application.
• Development and strengthening of personal and interpersonal skills in:
• Goal setting
• Decision making
• Effective communication
• Prosocial bonding
• Respect for self and others
• Managing emotions
• Normative expectancies
• Additional skills and developmental topics build on the core social skill set to broaden the student’s sense of self-efficacy and confidence and are tailored to the intellectual, cognitive, and social development of the student. Areas of focus include :
• Media Literacy and Media Influence
• Resisting Peer Pressure
• Understanding Peer Influence
• Understanding Addiction
• Exploring Risk Taking and Differentiating Healthy and Unhealthy Risks
• The curriculum emphasizes the negative consequences of drug use and the benefits of a drug-free lifestyle, thereby working to build student resiliency to inappropriate and harmful drug use. ATOD topics include:
• Prescription and Over-the-Counter (OTC) Drugs
• Stimulants
• Depressants
• Alcohol
• Nicotine including Tobacco and Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS)
• Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Marijuana

Program Delivery

Child/Adolescent Services

Too Good for Drugs (TGFD) 6th Grade directly provides services to children/adolescents and addresses the following:

• Poor social skills, positive attitudes towards substance use, peer rejection, inappropriate social behaviors, friends who engage in problem behaviors

Recommended Intensity:

One weekly 30- to 50-minute class session

Recommended Duration:

10 weeks

Delivery Settings

This program is typically conducted in a(n):

• Community-based Agency / Organization / Provider
• Group or Residential Care
• School Setting (Including: Day Care, Day Treatment Programs, etc.)

Homework

Too Good for Drugs (TGFD) 6th Grade includes a homework component:

Each lesson includes a Home Workout. This is a quick take-home lesson on the topic taught that day. It invites the family to support, practice, and reinforce what their child is learning in the program.

Languages

Too Good for Drugs (TGFD) 6th Grade has materials available in a language other than English:

Spanish

For information on which materials are available in this language, please check on the program's website or contact the program representative (contact information is listed at the bottom of this page).

Resources Needed to Run Program

The typical resources for implementing the program are:

• The Too Good for Drugs program kit for 6th Grade
• A Student Workbook for each student
• A classroom-type setting space that can accommodate individual, paired, and group work
• A blackboard or white board
• Access to a photocopier
• A CD or DVD player

Manuals and Training

Prerequisite/Minimum Provider Qualifications

Designed to be provided by professionals holding a minimum of a bachelor's degree, including teachers, guidance counselors, social workers, resource officers, or prevention specialists within a school system or community agency

Manual Information

There is a manual that describes how to deliver this program.

Program Manual(s)

Manual information:

• CE Mendez Foundation. (2019). Too Good for Drugs Grade 6. Author. https://toogoodprograms.org/products/too-good-for-drugs-grade-6-kit-2019-edition

Training Information

There is training available for this program.

Training Contact:

• Cindy Swartzwelder
  toogoodprograms.org
  cwiley@mendezfoundation.org
  phone: (800) 750-0986

Training Type/Location:

• On-site curriculum training which includes customized training to facilitate the agency climate and strategies for connecting with families and communities
• Group curriculum training provided at regional settings
• A comprehensive pre-delivery training module is included with the program kit. This training presents the program research base and logic model; delivery design and fidelity model; best practices and guidance on addressing and presenting topics on substance use at a developmentally appropriate level; lesson pacing and delivery strategies; and data collection and evaluation.

Number of days/hours:

On-Site Curriculum Training sessions are a provided in single-day, six-hour sessions and can be customized to suit the needs of the implementation site. Curriculum Trainings are targeted towards Implementation Teams and Line staff delivering the program. These trainings are offered at the implementation site or at a site determined by the implementing agency.

Open Enrollment Curriculum Training sessions are provided in a single-day, six-hour format and in a grade-level group structure. These trainings are offered at various locations nationally throughout the year. The Open enrollment Trainings provide the same content as the On-Site Curriculum Sessions but are not customizable.

Implementation Information

Pre-Implementation Materials

There are pre-implementation materials to measure organizational or provider readiness for Too Good for Drugs (TGFD) 6th Grade as listed below:

Customized Implementation training sessions are offered to Implementation teams to inform and prepare them to assemble a full implementation. Areas of focus include: Program Exploration including assembling an implementation team; Program Installation including building capacity, site selection, staff development, and training; Pilot delivery of the program; and Quality Assurance including data collection, evaluation, and sustainability planning.

On-Site Implementation Training sessions are a provided in single-day, six-hour sessions and are targeted towards Implementation Teams. The Implementation Training is delivered prior to staff and capacity selection and precedes Curriculum training. These trainings are offered at the implementation site or at a site determined by the implementing agency.

Formal Support for Implementation

There is formal support available for implementation of Too Good for Drugs (TGFD) 6th Grade as listed below:

Implementation Support is available for new and existing implementations to assist in all stages of implementation from Exploration to Sustainability. Implementation Support is not required but is recommended to ensure site readiness, staff readiness, buy-in, and quality assurance. Training is available for implementation staff to guide their implementation design and planning, use and deployment of fidelity instruments for process outcomes, and data collection for student outcome measures.

Implementation Support is available through email, teleconference, and site visit. Technical assistance is available throughout the implementation process.

Fidelity Measures

There are fidelity measures for Too Good for Drugs (TGFD) 6th Grade as listed below:

The instructors' perspective on the fidelity of implementation of the TGFD program is obtained by means of the 12-item Too Good Teacher Implementation Survey (TGTIS). The TGTIS covers Curricular Adherence, Instructional Environment, and Student Engagement, with each item scaled from 4 (Strongly Agree) to 1 (Strongly Disagree). The TGTIS also contains 4 open-ended questions regarding lesson or program fidelity. Use of the TGTIS requires no formal training. However, instructors are encouraged to keep a record of situations that arise during lesson delivery relevant to implementation, and to use these notes to inform their ratings when completing the TGTIS.

For an external or independent perspective on the fidelity of implementation, the Too Good Classroom Observation Form (TGCOF) is available. The TGCOF contains 16 items covering the same fidelity elements as the TGTIS (Curricular Adherence, Instructional Environment, and Student Engagement). Each item is rated by the independent in-class observer on a 3-point scale (3 = Fully Demonstrated, 2 = Partially Demonstrated, 1 = Not Demonstrated). Emphasis should be upon a summation of observation results across multiple offerings of a given lesson, or upon a summation of observation results across different lessons. No specific program of training is dictated. However, to increase the accuracy of the resulting observations, specific actions are suggested for the observer before and during the period of observation.

The fidelity measures are optional but the reason for including the two fidelity measures described above (the TGTIS and the TGCOF) in the appendices of the Mendez TGFD materials is to both enable and encourage the users to think about and investigate the fidelity of their intervention efforts.

Established Psychometrics:

An analysis of percent of inter-observer agreement was produced for the TGCOF. The study involved 24 paired observations across 10 different TGFD lessons. Results showed that the overall percent of exact agreement across the 10 different lessons was 90.8%; the percent of minor disagreement (one rating point difference between observers) was 8.8%.

• Bacon, T. P., Hall, B. W., & Ferron, J. M. (2013). Technical report: One year study of the effects of the Too Good for Drugs Prevention Program on middle school students. Atlanta, GA: Mendez Foundation. Note pp. 62-73).
• Hall, B. W., Bacon, T. P., & Ferron, J. M. (2013). Randomized controlled evaluation of the Too Good for Drugs Prevention Program: Impact on adolescents at different risk levels for drug use. Journal of Drug Education, 43(3), 277-300.

Implementation Guides or Manuals

There are no implementation guides or manuals for Too Good for Drugs (TGFD) 6th Grade.

Implementation Cost

There are no studies of the costs of Too Good for Drugs (TGFD) 6th Grade.

Research on How to Implement the Program

Research has not been conducted on how to implement Too Good for Drugs (TGFD) 6th Grade.

Relevant Published, Peer-Reviewed Research

Child Welfare Outcome: Child/Family Well-Being

Additional References

No reference materials are currently available for Too Good for Drugs (TGFD) 6th Grade.