The curriculum is usually offered in a five-session 2-hour format. However, the program is flexible and has been adapted to a 10-session 1-hour format to accommo-date delivery of PDFY in the workplace during the lunch hour. Some workshop leaders have spread the curriculum across more than five 2-hour sessions to accommodate additional parent discussion and practice of skills taught by the curriculum. For example, one group began each set of workshops with a potluck dinner for parents, provided half of the content of the first session, and expanded the number of sessions to six. The curriculum's content is described below.

Session 1, "Getting Started: How to Prevent Drug Abuse in Your Family," provides an overview of the PDFY program and of risk factors for substance abuse including family management problems, family drug use and positive attitudes toward use, alienation and rebelliousness, friends who use drugs, and early first use of drugs or alcohol. Parents learn about the nature and extent of drug use and abuse among teens. Participants learn how family bonding combined with healthy beliefs and clear standards can protect children from developing health and behavior problems. Parents learn how they can strengthen bonds by providing children opportunities, skills, and reinforcement or rewards for positive family involvement. In this session, parents practice the steps for conducting a family meeting to plan a joint recreational activity as one mechanism for increasing opportunities for rewarding involvement in the family.

Session 2, "Setting Clear Family Expectations on Drugs and Alcohol," focuses on reducing such risk factors as poor family management, favorable attitudes toward substance use, and early first use of drugs or alcohol. This session teaches parents how to establish healthy beliefs and clear standards for behavior, involve their children in creating a family policy about alcohol and other drugs, use family meetings, and recognize their children's role in developing a family position on drugs. The session begins with parents identifying their hopes and dreams for their children and how these hopes and dreams are jeopardized by drug use. Parents then learn to clarify their own expectations on alcohol and other drug use. They learn how to develop family guidelines and monitoring strategies and how to establish clear consequences for following or breaking the stated family rules on alcohol and other drug use. Finally, parents practice introducing a family position and involving their children in discussing and developing the family position during a family meeting.

Session 3, "Avoiding Trouble," focuses on risk factors including friends who use drugs, antisocial behavior in early adolescence, and early first use of alcohol or other drugs. Children attend this session with their parents. Together they learn to resist peer pressure to use drugs or alcohol or engage in antisocial behavior, using the five steps of Refusal Skills™.¹ The five steps include:

• Ask questions.

• Name the trouble.

• Identify the consequences.

• Suggest an alternative.

• Move it, sell it, and leave the door open (move away from the situation, sell the alternative to your friend, and leave the door open for later).

Each skill is taught using the cognitive behavioral techniques of introduction, discussion, role-play, and feedback. Further, parents and their children practice using refusal skills under pressure from friends. While one person applies the pressure of a negative influence in a role-play situation, the other practices using refusal skills under pressure. The steps for resisting pressure include:

• Stay calm.

• Say the person's name and make eye-contact.

• Say, "Listen to me."

• Pause.

• Continue using the steps for Refusal Skills™.

Parents and children also role-play Refusal Skills™ under pressure when a group plays the role of the negative influence. Participants practice pulling aside one of the group members and using Refusal Skills™. Finally, parents and their children discuss how to handle difficult refusal situations such as riding in a car where a friend applies pressure to use drugs or alcohol. Parents practice coaching their children to use refusal skills. Well-developed peer-resistance skills are expected to increase children's protection against later problem behavior.

Session 4, "Managing Family Conflict," is aimed at reducing the risks related to family conflict, poor family management, and alienation and rebelliousness. Parents identify and discuss the strategies they are currently using to express anger in their families. Parents identify how anger in the family can threaten family bonds. Parents learn and practice skills to express anger constructively and control anger without damaging family bonds.

In session 5, "Strengthening Family Bonds," parents explore ways to strengthen protection of their children by expanding opportunities for child involvement in the family. The session addresses the risk factors of poor family management, alienation and rebelliousness, lack of bonding to the family, and antisocial behavior in early adolescence. Parents learn how their children's involvement in family maintenance, health, financial, and governance tasks strengthens family bonds. Together, parents explore creative ways to expand opportunities for involvement in each of these four areas. Expanding family roles strengthens the protective value of family involvement and can teach skills necessary to perform tasks successfully. Parents practice expressing positive feelings and love to teenagers. Finally, session leaders provide parents with a process for developing a parenting support network to continue beyond the PDFY sessions. Generally, about 30 percent of the workshop participants choose to continue meeting in some capacity to deal with emerging issues of adolescence.

Sessions are typically conducted by two trained workshop leaders from the community. The curriculum kit consists of a workshop leaders' guide, a companion videotape series (one videotape for each session), and a family activity book for each participating family. The workshop leaders' guide provides session objectives, needed materials, and a scripted overview of the curriculum. In addition, the guide includes detailed information on how to conduct the parenting workshops and provides a sample recruitment brochure for parents. The companion videotapes model a variety of the targeted skills, present an accurate summary of the curriculum material, and present discussions by parents about how the program worked in their families. The family activity book is also designed to summarize the curriculum material; it offers family meeting agendas and other suggested activities. At the end of each session, a family meeting is assigned to be completed during the week to transfer session content to the home setting. Each PDFY session provides parents with an opportunity to practice the upcoming family meeting. The family activity book includes pullout pages for families to post in their homes.

A variety of optional materials are available to supplement the basic kit. These include a question-and-answer audiotape about risk factors to assist workshop leaders in answering difficult questions, an "ethnic adaptation guide" to assist with tailoring the curriculum for specific ethnic groups, and a "drug free tool kit" that provides aids for recruitment and retention of parents.

The curriculum sessions themselves are based on three important assumptions:

• Parents can play an important role in the reduction of risk factors for adolescent problem behaviors by their children.

• Parents can protect their children by offering them opportunities for involvement within the family, teaching them skills for success, recognizing and rewarding their involvement, and communicating clear family norms for appropriate behavior.

• Regular family meetings provide a mechanism for family involvement and serve as a way to transfer the content and skills from the curriculum into the home environment.