Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP)
BPP17
1999 (Updated 08/2006)
PDF Version of Fact Sheet
Contact SSDP
Program Overview:
This universal, multidimensional intervention decreases juveniles’ problem behaviors by working with parents, teachers, and children. It incorporates both social control and social learning theories and intervenes early in children’s development to increase prosocial bonds, strengthen attachment and commitment to schools, and decrease delinquency.
Program Targets:
The Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP) can be used for the general population and high-risk children (those with low socioeconomic status and low school achievement) attending grade school and middle school.
Program Content:
SSDP’s success lies in its combination of parent and teacher training.
Teachers receive instruction that emphasizes proactive classroom management, interactive teaching, and cooperative learning. When implemented, these techniques minimize classroom disturbances by establishing clear rules and rewards for compliance; increase children’s academic performance; and allow students to work in small, heterogeneous groups to increase their social skills and contact with prosocial peers. In addition, first-grade teachers teach communication, decision-making, negotiation, and conflict resolution skills; and sixth-grade teachers present refusal skills training.
Parents receive optional training programs throughout their children’s schooling.
- When children are in 1st and 2nd grade, 7 sessions of family management training help parents monitor children and provide appropriate and consistent discipline.
- When children are in 2nd and 3rd grade, 4 sessions encourage parents to improve communication between themselves, teachers, and students; create positive home learning environments; help their children develop reading and math skills, and support their children’s academic progress.
- When children are in 5th and 6th grade, 5 sessions help parents create family positions on drugs and encourage children’s resistance skills.
Program Outcomes:
Evaluations have demonstrated that the Project improves school performance, family relationships, and student drug/alcohol involvement at various grades.
At the end of grade 2, Project students, compared to control students, showed:
- Lower levels of aggression and antisocial, externalizing behaviors for white males, and
- Lower levels of self-destructive behaviors for white females.
At the beginning of grade 5, Project students, compared to control students, had:
- Less alcohol and delinquency initiation;
- Increases in family management practices, communication, and attachment to family; and
- More attachment and commitment to school.
At the end of grade 6, high-risk youth, compared to control youth, were:
- more attached and committed to school, and
- boys were less involved with antisocial peers.
At the end of grade 11, Project students, compared to control students, showed:
- Reduced involvement in violent delinquency and sexual activity, and
- Reductions in being drunk and in drinking and driving.
References
Hawkins, J.D., Catalano, R.F., Morrison, D., O’Donnell, J., Abbott, R., & Day, E. (1992). The Seattle Social Development Project: Effects of the First Four Years on Protective Factors and Problem Behaviors. In J. McCord, & R.E. Tremblay (Editors), Preventing Antisocial Behavior: Interventions from Birth through Adolescence (pp. 139-161). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Hawkins, J.D., Doueck, H.J., & Lishner, D.M. (1988). Changing Teacher Practices in Mainstream Classrooms to Improve Bonding and Behavior of Low Achievers. American Educational Research Journal, 25, 31-50.
Hawkins, J.D., Von Cleve, E., & Catalano, R.F. (1991). Reducing Early Childhood Aggression: Results of a Primary Prevention Program. Journal American Academy Child Adolescent Psychiatry, 30, 208-217.
O’Donnell, J., Hawkins, J.D., Catalano, R.F., Abbot, R.D., & Day, E. (1995). Preventing School Failure, Drug Use, and Delinquency among Low-Income Children: Long-Term Intervention in Elementary Schools. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 65, 87-100.
Contact SSDP
SEATTLE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT (SSDP) |
| For general program information, contact: |
| J. David Hawkins, Ph.D. University of Washington Social Development Research Group (SDRG) 9275 3rd Avenue NE, Suite 401 Seattle, WA 98115 Phone: (206) 685-1997 Fax: (206) 543-4507 Email: sdrg@u.washington.edu Website: depts.washington.edu/ssdp |
