Program Goals
The Substance Use Prevention Promoted by Eating family meals Regularly (SUPPER) Project is a brief preventive intervention that was designed to reduce children’s substance misuse, including increasing parent-child communication about substances and increasing eating family meals together (Skeer et al. 2016). Using a brief intervention model, the program targeted parents to help them become facilitators in preventing substance misuse among their children by encouraging them to have five or more family meals together weekly as the primary intervention strategy. During these family meals, parents are encouraged to talk to their children about the harms of substance use and other related topics. The goal is to prevent children’s misuse of substances, including alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs.
Target Population/Eligibility
To participate in the SUPPER intervention, parents had to meet the following criteria: 1) had a child in the third through sixth grade, 2) were in the same location as the child to facilitate a meal together at least 5 days per week, and 3) spoke English or Spanish fluently.
Program Components/ Key Personnel
The SUPPER program comprised of two parts: 1) an in-person session, and 2) a home-based component.
For the in-person session, parents first received a handbook (available in English and Spanish and written at an eighth-grade reading level) specific to their child’s gender that provided advice and information on the following: 1) background on adolescent substance use (such as up-to-date statistics and effects of substance use on the developing brain); 2) parent-child communication, which included the importance of open communication, monitoring, and ways to communicate effectively; 3) the importance of eating at least five meals per week with their children, including which meals parents should eat with their children, what to avoid doing during meals (such as watching TV or using phones to talk or text), and alternatives if eating meals together is not possible; 4) parent-child communication that specifically focused on the harms of substance use; and 5) a website that linked to resources for additional information, which were printed out for any parent without internet access. Parents were asked to read the entire handbook before the in-person session. Approximately 2 weeks after receiving the handbook, parents participated in a 1-hour session with a communication specialist, to review main points of the handbook that were most relevant to each parent and allow them to ask questions.
For the home-based component, which happened 2 weeks after the initial in-person session, parents had a 30-minute follow-up phone call with the same communication specialist. Text messages were sent to parents twice per week for 13 weeks, which provided reminders and tips reinforced by information in the handbook; a refrigerator magnet was also provided to reinforce the message about the importance of family meals.
Program Theory
The SUPPER program was based on the theory that a child’s family environment contains risk factors, such as family conflict and heightened family stress (Bray et al. 2001), and protective factors, such as family cohesion and effective family management (Spoth et al. 2005), both of which can impact substance use. Research suggests that family-centered approaches that focus on strengthening parent-child relationships, parental attitudes against substance use, and the monitoring of children are shown to prevent substance use among adolescents, even into young adulthood (Kumpfer et al. 2003; Skeer et al. 2016). In addition, because strengthening parent-child relationships is a principle of substance use prevention, family meals are thought to provide children with structure and stability, increase parent-child trust, and facilitate family communication (Skeer and Ballard 2013).
