Why Does it Work?
What are “Best Practices?”
Over the last decade, many professionals have started the process of identifying “Best Practices” in their respective fields. These usually represent practices that both research and “expert opinion” support as effective. In the alcohol and drug field, Best Practices are being identified for both prevention and recovery.
Does PRIME For Life use Best Practices?
PRIME For Life is designed to be delivered in a research-based persuasion protocol. The protocols used in PRIME For Life emphasize the role of empathy, specific guidance regarding personal choices, the management of resistance, support for change, and a plan for success, all protocols identified as best practices.
When co-authors Ray Daugherty and Terry O’Bryan began developing PRIME For Life in the early 80s, they studied research on how people change their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Based on their findings, they structured an approach that reflected this research including strategies articulated by early change theorists like Kurt Lewin and later by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente, widely recognized experts on the change process. Unknown to PRIME For Life developers, others in the field would later use part of this same research base to develop what would become Motivational Interviewing or Motivational Enhancement Therapy. When the substance abuse field started talking about “research-based” and “best practices,” the program developers were gratified—it was what they had been studying and practicing for many years.
Kurt Lewin's "Force Field Analysis" (p. 112) by M.S. Spier, in The 1973 Annual Handbook for Group Facilitators by J.E. Jones and J.W. Pfeiffer (Eds.), 1973, San Diego, California: University Associates. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
McGuire, W. J. (1947). Communication-persuasion models for drug education. In M. Goodstadt, (Ed.), Research on methods and programs of drug education (pp.1-26). Toronto, Ontario: Addiction Research Foundation.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.
Bandura, A. (1999). A sociocognitive analysis of substance abuse: An agentic perspective. Psychological Science, 10, 214-217.
DiClemente, C. C. (2003). Addiction and change: How addictions develop and addicted people recover. New York: Guilford Press.
McGuire, W. J. (1947). Communication-persuasion models for drug education. In M. Goodstadt, (Ed.), Research on methods and programs of drug education, (pp.1-26). Toronto, Ontario: Addiction Research Foundation.
Prochaska, J. O., Norcross, J. C., & DiClemente C. C. (1994). Changing for good. New York: Harper Collins.
Rollnick, S., & Miller, W. (2002). Motivational interviewing. Preparing people for change. New York: Guilford Press.
PRIME For Life is a unique program and different from many prevention and intervention approaches. To ensure an understanding, both of the curriculum and of the prevention and intervention protocols, full participation in an intensive four-day training is required to teach the program. Program materials may not be used by any person who does not attend a four-day training.
Prevention Research Institute regularly offers new instructor training workshops in its programs throughout the country; military trainings are conducted in Europe, as well. Many of the four-day trainings are sponsored by state systems and are closed to participants outside of the sponsoring system; some of these are open as space becomes available. National trainings are open to all applicants.
Instructor materials include a detailed Instructor’s Manual cross-referenced to nearly 1500 scientific publications; a set of four DVD teaching discs; a student workbook; instructor workbook; an instructor resource CD-ROM; and a set of full-color posters for each delivery site. Participants are granted Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for attending a training. Technical assistance and follow-up after the training is an ongoing support service offered by Prevention Research Institute staff.
Satisfactory completion of the workshop and passing the final exam are the first two steps of the certification process. The final steps require the instructor candidate to teach a certification class; after the program is taught in entirety, instructors report their experience online with a certification report. When these four steps are complete, PRI issues a certification number. In state systems, the given state may have additional requirements to meet state requirements for teaching.
States or organizations that mandate the PRIME For Life curriculum for a given population (such as DUI or Corrections) enter into a special agreement with PRI, and the tuition and materials’ cost for instructors are negotiated individually with each system. For instructors who are not in a system which has reached this agreement with PRI, the cost for the training is $895.00.
At the curriculum training, instructors sign an agreement with PRI and pledge that each person who completes a PRIME For Life class will receive a participant workbook. Workbooks are essential to student learning and include activities completed in class; it also includes an easy-to-read summary of the information taught in class. Many instructors receive reimbursement for this workbook expense through client fees, contracts for services, or grants. Prices for the books vary according to each system’s agreement. For current pricing, please contact Prevention Research Institute.
In addition to new instructor training, Prevention Research Institute conducts several continuing education conferences annually for trained PRIME For Life instructors. These conferences include workshops to build skills, enhance understanding of curriculum materials and re-energize instructors. Instructors are also kept up-to-date with a newsletter that includes general information of interest to instructors and summaries of new research with implications for teaching PRIME For Life.