Program Profile: Guiding Good Choices

This is a family-competency training program to promote healthy parent-child interactions and address children’s risk for early substance use. The program is rated Promising. Parent participants had a statistically significant improvement in intervention-targeted parenting behaviors, at 1-year posttest. Child participants had a statistically significant lower likelihood of alcohol-related problems and cigarette use, after 10 years, but there was no effect on being drunk and using illicit drugs.

An Effective rating implies that implementing the program is likely to result in the intended outcome(s).

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes either 1) one study conducted in multiple sites; or 2) two or three studies, each conducted at a different site. Learn about how we make the multisite determination.

Program Goals/Target Population

Guiding Good Choices (GGC) is a multimedia, family-competency training program that promotes healthy, protective parent–child interactions and reduces children’s risk for early substance use. Prosocial family bonding is developed by targeting three goals: 1) increasing the frequency of opportunities for prosocial involvement in the family, 2) strengthening the child’s skills for prosocial involvements (e.g., participating in family activities and governance) and resisting peer pressure; and 3) recognizing and rewarding child behaviors that conform to family rules and expectations and using appropriate consequences for rule violations. The program targets families of children in elementary school.

Program Activities

GGC is delivered in five consecutive weekly sessions, typically during a weeknight evening at a school. Each session lasts about 2 hours and is led by two trained facilitators. Videotapes are used to guide the presentations, to standardize delivery of program content across facilitators, and to enhance the learning process by visually demonstrating effective parent–child and family interactions.
Children are required to attend one session, which concentrates on peer-pressure-resistance skills. The other four sessions involve only parents and include instruction in:

1. Identifying risk factors for adolescent substance use and developing clear guidelines on substance-related behaviors
2. Enhancing positive parent-child bonding
3. Developing effective parenting skills, particularly those regarding monitoring substance use issues and using appropriate consequences
4. Managing anger and family conflict
5. Providing opportunities and rewards for positive child involvement in family activities

Program Theory

GGC is based on the social development model, which theorizes that enhancing protective factors (e.g., bonding to prosocial family, school, and peers; having clear standards or norms for behavior) will decrease the likelihood that children will engage in problem behaviors (Catalano and Hawkins 1996; Hawkins and Weis 1985). The GGC design focuses on prosocial family bonding to facilitate prosocial interactions at school and with peers, set clear standards or norms for behavior, and decrease the likelihood of child substance use (Kosterman et al. 2001).

Study 1

Redmond and colleagues (1999) examined the long-term parenting outcomes of Guiding Good Choices (GGC), which was previously called Preparing for the Drug-Free Years. The original evaluation conducted by Spoth, Redmond, and Shin (1998) examined effects immediately postintervention; this 1999 study examined effects 1 year following the original posttest. In the original study, schools were selected on the basis of free-lunch-program eligibility and community size (population of 8,500 or fewer). Schools were assigned using a randomized block design, wherein blocks were formed on the basis of school size and the proportion of students residing in low-income neighborhoods. Within blocks, schools were assigned to GGC (n = 221 families), a second intervention group (Iowa Strengthening Families Program, n = 238 families) or a minimal contact control group (n = 208 families). At the 1-year follow up, the final sample consisted of GGC (n = 124 families), Iowa Strengthening Families Program (n = 141), and a minimal contact control group (n = 139). The CrimeSolutions review of this study focused on the comparison between the GGC group and the contact control group.

Participants were families of sixth graders enrolled in 33 rural schools in 19 contiguous counties in a midwestern state. The two groups were similar across sociodemographic characteristics at pretest, although the average number of years of education was greater for study participants (0.7 years more) than for the comparison group. The sample that completed both pretests and posttests was composed primarily of families that were dual-parent (85.0 percent) and white (98.6 percent). In 53 percent of the families, the target child for the intervention was female. The mean age of the sample was 11.3 years.

Study measures included parent-child affective quality, general child management, and intervention-targeted parenting behaviors (including substance use rules and consequences, anger management, and involving child in family activities), and were constructed from self-report items and observational ratings. The original analysis incorporated three waves of data collected over a 2.5-year period. This study included parenting outcomes 1 year following posttest. Intervention effects were examined through structural equation modeling of covariance matrices using maximum likelihood estimation. No subgroup analyses were conducted.

Study 2

Spoth and colleagues (2009) used the same sample as the original study by Spoth, Redmond, and Shin (1998) to assess the long-term, 10-year impact of the GGC program on the initiation of substance use (alcohol or tobacco) and on the progression from one status to another (e.g., from no-use to alcohol-only use). The 10-year follow-up period allowed the researchers to follow participants into young adulthood, and data were collected at seven points in time over that period.

The study used four measures to assess young adult substance use: frequency of drunkenness, alcohol-related problems, use of cigarettes, and use of illicit drugs. A fifth measure, for polysubstance use, was developed by dichotomizing answers for the previous measures and compiling them.

The primary analysis used an indirect effects model, which was designed to address issues related to the long follow-up period. The model compares case rates in the treatment and control conditions, which yields relative reduction rates—that is, the proportion of control condition cases that would have been prevented had those individuals received the intervention. It was hypothesized that program effects on problematic substance use in young adults would occur indirectly, through the program’s impact on the initiation of substance use. A hierarchical latent growth curve model was used to assess the intervention effects on adolescent substance use initiation, which was then assessed for its effects on young adult substance use outcomes. No subgroup analyses were conducted.

The core program kit includes materials for use by workshop leaders, including two copies of the Workshop Leader’s Guide, each including the training binder/text, workshop video DVD, Family Guide, and CD containing PowerPoint presentations.

Guiding Good Choices is designed to be implemented by two workshop leaders who facilitate sessions, sharing responsibility for instruction, modeling skills, and answering questions. At least one of the leaders should be a parent. Also, a Family Guide should be provided to each participating family.

Three days of onsite training for Workshop Leaders is recommended but not required.

Guiding Good Choices is available in English and Spanish.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile: