Project “REBOUND” (Resilience–Bound) has been chosen by the
Mentor Foundation, Germany—in collaboration with Heidelberg University
and KIRON Institute, each in Germany, and the Center for Educational Research
and Development (CERD) in the United States—for model development, implementation
and evaluation in 2009-2010, then expanding to a 6-10 year study across Europe
and the U.S. for a long term experimental trial.
“It is a school-based program where our team will apply a resilience
frame to learning and development across the whole school, while targeting drug
education,” said Brown.
He further notes, “As we now understand that as much of current drug
education has been shown to negatively impact the overall conditions of education,
we believe that focusing on resilience in drug education can positively spillover
to help young people not only make effective drug decisions, but as a springboard
for lifelong learning and development.”
The student age range of the initial study is from age 14-18 years old, and
the material will be developmentally and culturally appropriate. At its most
basic construction, REBOUND involves experientially-driven techniques for targeting
resilience to support learning and development. This includes drug education
based on the complementary process of “Risk Competence,” where the
focus is on young people identifying their skills to make drug decisions using
advanced technologies, such as video scenarios for young people to assess personal
risk and competencies for making drug decisions.
CERD developed some of the first practical approaches focusing on strengths
as an alternative to current youth and human development services. "Developing
resilience at school improves academic performance and strengthens students'
abilities to overcome obstacles in all aspects of life. Most important, a resilience-focus
promotes young people's thriving development both immediately and in the long
term," said Brown.
