Prevention Works!

Volunteers Provide Youth With Alternatives to Alcohol and Drug Use

A 1995 study by the Carnegie Foundation found that children now spend significantly less time with adults than they did 20 years ago--and much more time unsupervised in front of the television or with other children. For some young people, this unstructured time and lack of opportunity to interact with caring adults can contribute to experimentation with drugs and alcohol. Through its Your Time--Their Future Campaign, SAMHSA/CSAP has partnered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the Points of Light Foundation, and the National Mentoring Partnership to encourage more adults to volunteer their time with young people.

In 1995, the Gallup Survey on Volunteering for Serious Social Problems found that 46 percent of America’s 90 million households had at least one adult doing some volunteer work. It also found that volunteering to help the elderly, hungry, learning disabled, or physically handicapped was more popular than volunteering on behalf of neglected and disadvantaged youth. SAMHSA/CSAP and its partners aim to educate adults about the significant difference they can make by volunteering with young people. They are also providing the resources adults need to take those first steps toward getting involved. Prevention professionals and community activists who are working to stop youth substance abuse may wish to share these resources with their communities.

Adults can tailor their volunteer efforts to match their schedule and interests. There is a range of programs available for people who want to volunteer on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, or even just a few times a year. While coaching a sports team may involve running practice for an hour or two every day, tutoring a student typically involves only a few hours each week. Other less structured activities, such as reading to kids at a local school or counseling them at a work-sponsored career day, may involve only a couple of hours a month. Many "City Cares" organizations, such as Philadelphia Cares and Hands on Baltimore, coordinate volunteer projects targeted to very busy people who want to give a few hours at a time to specific tasks. Some adults may prefer participating in a short-term service activity before making a long-term commitment.

Before researching opportunities, potential volunteers should define what skills, talents, and interests they want to use; the type of work they want to do; how much time they have; and what age group and number of children they want to help. With this information in hand, they will be better prepared to find the right match.

More and more, volunteer centers and service agencies are using the Internet as a tool for offering information about their work and recruiting volunteers. Those who have Internet access at home, school, or at their local library may wish to spend some time looking at these sites to get a better sense of what volunteering is all about. For example, Web sites of groups such as   America’s Promise--The Alliance for Youth (http://www.americaspromise.org) and   KidsCampaigns (http://www.connectforkids.org)   feature information about youth-focused organizations and initiatives nationwide.

In addition, volunteers can also contact local volunteer centers or youth service organizations. SAMHSA’s National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information (NCADI) has established a national database of Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies, Points of Light Foundation volunteer centers, and National Mentoring Partnership affiliates that can help to place volunteers. By calling NCADI at 1-800-729-6686 or visiting them online at http://ncadi.samhsa.gov/yourtime/default.aspx, interested adults can obtain contact information for such groups in their local area. Online visitors can not only search the database, but they can also link directly to the Web sites of the three partner organizations, which feature useful advice and information about volunteering. Through NCADI, adults can also order SAMHSA/CSAP publications about volunteerism, including the brochure Get Involved in Someone’s Future: A Guide to Volunteering with Young People.

To receive a complimentary copy of this PreventionAlert, call SAMSHA's National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information (NCADI) @ 1-800-729-6686, TDD 1-800-487-4889 (for the hearing impaired.) PREVENTIONAlert is supported by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and may be copied without permission with appropriate citation. For information about PREVENTIONAlert, please contact CSAP by phone (301) 443-0581 or e-mail gensley@samhsa.gov

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