Preliminary Findings from Guatemala City: Implementing a US-Developed Nrepp Prevention Curriculum in Schools Located in High Risk/High Violence Environments

This presentation highlights a pilot project in schools in “red zones” of Guatemala City via a collaboration of Asociación Civil U Yum Cap ONG, a non-profit organization based in Guatemala City and ASU Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center (SIRC). U Yum Cap is a privately funded non-profit organization whose mission is: “to implement prevention programs that promote social, cultural and economic changes for Guatemalans”.

Two objectives for the pilot were set. The first was to determine the feasibility of implementing a prevention curriculum in schools located in the highest-crime/highest-violence sections of the city. The second, assuming that it proved feasible to engage schools in these areas, was to measure the effectiveness of a US-developed, evidence-based program transported, in total, to adolescents in Guatemala City.

The curriculum, Mantente REAL, is the standard Spanish translation of the keepin’ it REAL substance abuse prevention curriculum, a widely-used NREPP Legacy Program developed for urban minority youth in the US Southwest. The pilot was designed to train Guatemala City classroom teachers to integrate the curriculum into their regular instructional schedules and deliver Mantente REAL to a minimum of 200 students. Also included in the pilot was the administration of pre and post surveys, fidelity observations conducted by trained project personnel during delivery of the program, and the completion of 10 lessons delivered on a weekly basis.

At the conclusion of the pilot, 225 youth had participated in data collection activities.  This presentation will focus on results by highlighting the processes involved in engaging the schools and teachers; the context of the implementation in the red zones of the city; and, the feasibility of introducing a structured prevention curriculum as a new concept in Guatemala.  Also included will be preliminary findings of program effectiveness such as pre/post trends in youth use of the strategies taught in the curriculum; trends in the use of strategies when considering the substance offered; results reported by youth attending red light district schools compared to other schools; use of the REAL strategies by youth when considering the education level of their mothers; and, gender differences in substance use.  In addition, the presentation will include a substantive discussion of the implications of transporting in total a US-developed program, adapted only through translating and back translating to ensure standard forms of Spanish throughout the materials.  Finally, the second stage of the project, a small randomized controlled trial recently completed, will be described in addition to plans for continued engagement of Guatemalan and US resources to expand the study to a large-scale RCT.