Lifeskills WORKS!

HELLO, Prevention People!

We are so, so, SO excited to launch the Western Massachusetts Lifeskills Training Network site! This blog will serve as a vibrant hub of information and updates on the Botvin Lifeskills Training program implementation in schools in the Franklin/Quabbin Area in Western Massachusetts. The Communities That Care Coalition of Franklin County has underwritten the adoption of the Botvin Lifeskills Training program, which is an evidence-based Blueprints Model Program substance abuse prevention program for middle school aged students. Lifeskills Training (LST) is designed to prevent teenage drug and alcohol abuse, adolescent tobacco use, violence and other risk behaviors. The LST curriculum teaches students self-management skills, social skills, and drug awareness and resistance skills. LST has fantastic outcomes in reducing youth substance abuse when implemented with fidelity--and that's where this WMALifeskills Network comes in! We exist in an effort to promote and ensure the best possible implementation of LST in order to achieve the wonderful, healthy outcomes promised by this award-winning curriculum.

So who should pay attention to this blog? If you're a teacher, administrator, or community builder in the Franklin / Quabbin area, this is for YOU! The schools who are a part of the CTC Coalition and have adopted LST are: Athol/Royalston, Four Rivers Charter School, Frontier Regional School, Gill-Montague, Greenfield, Mohawk, Pioneer Valley, and Mahar. But this blog's audience can and should reach far beyond our local region. Realistically, anyone in the world who cares about positive youth development should bookmark this page. The LST Program has been shown to be instrumental in promoting healthy protective factors, particularly problem solving skills, refusal skills and coping skills,  and minimizing risk factors, especially favorable attitudes toward drug use. 

So, follow us! Here you'll find tips on program implementation as well as a place to pose questions on anything and everything LST. Stay tuned! There will be much, much more to come!

Yours in prevention, 


Kate Blair, M.Ed
Western MA Lifeskills Network Coordinator
Frontier Regional School Health Educator