Building Evaluation Capacity for Social Media Campaign Interventions Targeting Parental Monitoring Behaviors to Reduce Youth Alcohol Use

Background 21 Reasons is a CBO whose mission is to build a healthy community environment with policies, practices, and attitudes that support the drug-free development of all youth. The goal of this evaluation was to assess the impact of 21 Reasons on parents’ self-efficacy to influence their child’s behavior and compare their results to the students reports of parental and community influence. Methods used to evaluate these efforts included primary data analysis to create parent and student cohorts both by age of child and by child’s grade. We then performed data analysis to determine the effects of our program on these groups looking at outcomes of interest such as increased readiness, feelings of inevitability as children age, or empowerment to implement evidence based parental monitoring for prevention.  We also looked at student data on whether they felt they would be caught by their parents, their parents disapproved of underage drinking, had clear rules, feeling they would be caught for underage drinking. Results showed positive correlation between 21 Reason’s parent campaign interventions, parent behaviors, and selected students attitudes. In conclusion, parent findings indicated significant improvement not only the self-reported ability to influence their child’s choices but also the understanding of the need to preventing underage alcohol use. Mixed results the student data indicates that additional focus is needed on assisting parents with how to affect access to alcohol and to monitor their child’s behavior.  This evaluation highlights the complexity of the relationship between parent and child knowledge, attitudes and behaviors.