NCADD of Middlesex County, Inc. (now doing business as Wellspring Center for Prevention) developed the Footprints for Life™ program as a comprehensive substance abuse prevention intervention for early elementary school-aged children.
Footprints is a research-based primary prevention program designed to build assets and teach skills through the use of puppets and stories that feature "real life" situations experienced by a children's soccer team.
NCADD hired the Center for Children and Families (CCF), a research center affiliated with the Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, to analyze evaluation data collected for the project. The goals of the evaluation included analysis of teacher responses for satisfaction with the program and observed child outcomes.
The evaluation identified many positive findings regarding the Footprints for Life TM program. Teachers reported high levels of satisfaction with the program and indicated that they witnessed students' using the skills taught by the Footprints curriculum. In particular, teachers reported that the Footprints program facilitated enthusiastic learning by youth participants and featured grade- and age-appropriate information. In addition, teachers reported using lessons from the Footprints curriculum to reinforce concepts in the classroom on a regular basis.
