The Seattle Social Development Project: An Implementation of the Raising Healthy Children Intervention

Plain-language summary

The Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP) included a three-part intervention for teachers, parents, and students in grades 1 to 6. It was a universal prevention program that was tested in elementary schools serving children from high crime urban areas. The intervention trained teachers in proactive classroom management, interactive teaching, and cooperative learning. SSDP also offered training to parents in child behavior management, academic support, and skills to reduce risks for drug use. It provided training to children designed to affect interpersonal problem solving and refusal skills. These interventions were designed to reduce risks and increase protection at the individual, peer, family and school levels. The package of interventions was guided theoretically by the social development model. We hypothesized that training teachers to teach and manage their classrooms in ways that promote bonding to school, training parents to manage their families in ways that promote bonding to family and to school, and providing children with training in skills for social interaction would positively affect children's attitudes toward school, behavior at school, and academic achievement. These methods further sought to reduce children's opportunities and rewards for antisocial involvement. We thought that these changes would, in turn, set children on a different developmental trajectory observable in higher school achievement and fewer health-risk behaviors later in adolescence.

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