Coping Power

The Coping Power Program: Preventive Intervention at the Middle School Transition

John E. Lochman
The University of Alabama

Karen C. Wells and Maureen Murray

Duke University Medical Center

The development and evaluation of this program has been supported by grants from the Center
for Substance Abuse Prevention, the National Institute for Drug Abuse, the Department of
Justice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the US Department of Justice. The
initial program development and program implementation have been assisted by our dedicated
and creative intervention staff including Vicki Brown, Craig Colder, Becky Frank, Mary
Gifford-Smith, Laura Gilliom, Lisa Lenhart, Terri McCandies, Desiree Murray, Lisa ReiterLavery, and Sue Smith-Scott. We express appreciation to the staff and administrators of the
Durham NC School System who collaborated in the orginal planning and implementation of the
Coping Power program. Further information about the Coping Power program, and about
training for the program, can be obtained by contacting John E. Lochman, PhD, Department of
Psychology, Box 870348, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487.

Citation: Lochman, J.E., Wells, K.C., & Murray, M. (2007). The Coping Power program:
Preventive intervention at the middle school transition. In P. Tolan, J. Szapocznik, & S.
Sambrano (Eds.), Preventing youth substance abuse: Science-based programs for children and
adolescents (pp. 185-210). American Psychological Association: Washington, DC.
Running Head: Coping Power
4/05

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Larry is a 14 year old African-American male from Durham, North Carolina

(Durham is an urban area of approximately 250,000 and is a minority-majority city). He
entered the Coping Power program at the age of 11 and was repeating the 4th grade at the
time intervention began. He was residing with his mother and his two younger siblings
and had minimal contact with his father. The family lived in a neighborhood in which
frequent crimes occurred, including both drug sales and shootings related to the drug
trade. During the course of intervention Larry and his family moved five times, though
all of these moves were within the same dangerous neighborhood. During this time
Larry was doing poorly academically; his school attendance was poor, he was not
completing his homework, and his mother had no involvement with Larrys school.
Larry had frequent disciplinary referrals to the school office. Most of these involved
either conflicts with peers or explosive outbursts with teachers. He was suspended from
school on several occasions, for fighting with other students, destroying school property,
and making threatening remarks to his teachers. When approached, both Larry and his
mother agreed to participate in the Coping Power program.
The Coping Power Program
The Coping Power program is based on a contextual social-cognitive model of childhood
aggression (Lochman & Wells, 2002a), which is a risk marker for later adolescent substance use.
This program is provided to preadolescent aggressive children and their parents. In this
intervention, aggressive children are identified as being in the top 30 percent of children based
on teachers ratings of aggressive behavior. Coping Power includes a child component, which
consists of a 34 session group intervention, and a coordinated 16-session parent component, both
of which are designed to be delivered over a 16 to 18 month period of time. The child and parent

Coping Power

components target four central predictor variables which have been associated with adolescent
substance use: childrens social competence, childrens self regulation and self control,
childrens social bond with school, and caregivers positive involvement and consistent
discipline.
The Coping Power Model
Substance abuse can be conceptualized in a developmental framework to be the result of
a set of familial and personal factors, with childrens aggressive behavior often being part of that
developmental course (Lochman & Wells, 1996). This developmental course is set within the
childs social ecology, and an ecological framework is needed to guide preventive efforts
(Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 1992). Research has suggested that childrens
aggressive behavior serves as an important risk factor for later substance use. Loeber (1990)
theorizes that as these aggressive behavior patterns become entrenched, later sequelae on the
trajectory to substance abuse and conduct disorder occur. In early to middle childhood, the
increasingly oppositional children can experience highly negative reactions from teachers and
rejection from peers. Childrens academic progress and their social bond to school weakens and
by early adolescence they become more susceptible to deviant peer group influences. By
adolescence, this trajectory results in a heightened risk of substance use, delinquent acts and
school failure. Thus, as prior research (e.g., Hawkins, Catalano & Miller, 1992) indicates, four
relevant predictors of adolescent and adult substance abuse include (1) childrens lack of social
competence and inability to get along with other children, (2) poor self regulation, self control
and impulse control, (3) weak social bond with the school, and resulting academic failure, and
(4) poor care giver investment in the child, (involving a lack of a warm and protective and
protective environment, and consistent discipline) and in parenting interventions. These
predictor variables, which mediate childrens behavioral difficulties and later drug abuse, have

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also been identified in extensive reviews of the risk factors for drug problems, (Hawkins,
Catalano & Miller, 1992), and will be briefly reviewed here.
Social Competence
Children who experience peer rejection and social isolation in the elementary school
grades are at risk for early-onset drug use, and other negative adolescent outcomes such as
school failure and criminality (Coie, 1990; Hawkins, Catalano & Miller, 1992; Kellam et al.,
1980). Children who are rejected by peers are often highly aggressive (Coie, 1990), and
characteristic social competence and social information processing difficulties are apparent for
these children (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Lochman & Dodge, 1994; Lochman, Wayland & White,
1993). The characteristic social information processing deficits for aggressive children include
(a) hypervigilance to hostile cues, (b) a hostile attributional bias as children have distorted
interpretations about the hostility of others intentions, (c) a dominance-oriented pattern of social
goals, (d) social problem-solving deficits involving recall of strategies that are primarily actionoriented and do not involve verbal assertion or negotiation, and (e) beliefs that aggressive
behavior will produce rewards for them. Because of the lack of acceptance by most of their peer
group, socially incompetent children become susceptible to the influence of deviant peer groups
in adolescence
Self Regulation and Self Control
Unregulated, emotional distress, especially impulsive anger, has been associated with
aggressive behavior problems and with adolescent drug use. When emotionally-activated,
aggressive children problem solve in an automatic, preemptive manner, they generate less
competent, more action-oriented solutions than when they think of solutions in a deliberate,
slower manner (Rabiner, Lenhart & Lochman, 1990). Childrens inability to regulate their
emotional responses contributes to their poor social competence (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992).

Coping Power

Notably, reactive aggressive behavior has been related to unregulated, intense emotional arousal
in general, and to high levels of anger in particular (Dodge, Lochman, Harnish, Bates & Pettit,
1998; Lochman, Dunn & Wagner, 1997). Aggressive behavior has emerged, in turn, as a
predictor of adolescent substance use. For example, Lochman and Wayland (1994) found that
eleven-year-old boys who were nominated by their classmates as being highly aggressive, using
sociometric procedures, were using substances at a significantly higher rate than were
nonaggressive peers when all of the boys were followed up four years later, at age 15.
Social Bond With School
Children who have low commitment to school and who have high rates of school failure
are at risk for drug use (Hawkins, Catalano & Miller, 1992). Adolescent who dislike school and
who spend little time on homework and perceive school work to be irrelevant experience earlier
onset of drug use. The ability of children to develop an adequate protective bond with school, is
the result of multiple factors, including capacities of the children themselves (e.g. study skills,
organization skills; positive relationships with teachers) and of parents active involvement with
the schools, and parents encouragement and structuring of childrens study behavior.
Caregiver Involvement
In an extensive review of the risk factors for drug problems, Hawkins, Catalano and
Miller (1992) identified several caregiving risk factors which are also directly linked to
childhood aggression, including: (1) deficient family management practices involving lack of
maternal involvement, inconsistent parenting, unusually severe or permissive parenting, and poor
monitoring and unclear expectations of behavior; and (2) low levels of warmth and involvement
in parent-child relations. Taken together the available evidence suggests that family and parent
factors exert a direct effect on adolescent substance abuse and in addition, these family factors
exert an indirect effect via their association with child aggression and antisocial behaviors, poor

Coping Power

social competence and academic failure (Santisteban, Szapocznik, & Kurtines, 1994), which, as
noted earlier, are themselves associated with later adolescent substance abuse. As children
emerge into early adolescence, appropriate parental monitoring assumes increasing importance
in preventing the adolescents gravitation to deviant peer groups, and to substance using and
delinquent behavior (Fletcher, Darling & Steinberg, 1995).
Staff, Training and Supervision
Intervention Staff
Intervention staff for the Coping Power Program typically consists of social workers and
school counselors at the Masters Degree level of professional training and psychologists at the
PhD level. These individuals are responsible for conducting child groups in the schools and
parent groups with parents of these same children.
Training
All intervention staff began their training by reading two intervention manuals containing
session by session outlines of the content and process of each of the major components of
Coping Power (Child Component and Parent Component) (Lochman, Lenhart, and Wells, 1996;
Wells, Lenhart & Lochman, 1996). Then, two-to-four all day training workshops are conducted
by the primary developers of the model in which the treatment model is presented including
background and rationale, and review of session material. Some role-playing of specific
techniques occurs. Many therapy process issues also were discussed during training such as,
how to manage a large group of disruptive children; how to provide clear group structure; how to
present parent training in a non-blaming manner; and how to discuss the problems with the use
of physical punishment without appearing judgmental toward parents who may use it.
Supervision

Coping Power

Intervention staff receive ongoing supervision during the entire course of the 18-month
intervention. Supervision occurs in both group and individual formats. On a regular basis
(weekly for intervention research studies; monthly for dissemination efforts) staff meet with
experienced Coping Power trainers to discuss ongoing groups and to plan for upcoming parent
and child group meetings. Staff shared their experiences with staff who had upcoming meetings
on the same topic. Group supervision also allowed for peer support among staff when the
inevitable frustrations of doing clinical work with disruptive child populations came up.
The Coping Power Program at the Middle School Transition
The Coping Power Program delivered at the time of childrens transition to middle school
includes both indicated preventive intervention components and universal intervention
components. Intervention begins in the year prior to the middle school transition (typically 5th
grade) and continues into the first year in middle school (typically 6th grade), although the
program is generally developmentally appropriate for children from the middle elementary
school grades through the middle years of middle school, and can be adapted to cover grades 3 to
7. The Coping Power indicated intervention is delivered to target children who have been
identified by teacher and parent ratings of childrens aggressive behavior as being relatively high
in aggressive behavior problems, and has both a child component and a parent component. The
child and parent components are developed to be delivered in tandem, and certain topics are
designed to come up at common times in the parent and child groups. The Coping Power
targeted intervention components address these high risk childrens deficits in social
competence, self regulation, school bonding, and positive parental involvement. The universal
prevention program is directed at all parents and at teachers, and is designed to have ecological
influence on the social bonds between home and school, child and school, and parent and child.
An intervention combining both of these universal and indicated prevention components, through

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its greater intensity in addressing the social competence and self control of the peer ecology
around the indicated target children, was expected to produce greater change in the mediating
predictor variables than was either part of the intervention program separately.
Coping Power Child Component: Group Sessions
The Coping Power child component is a 16-to-18 month program, with 22 group sessions
scheduled for the fifth grade year, and 12 group sessions for the sixth grade year, as implemented
in our CSAP-funded project. Child Component group sessions typically take place at childrens
schools (after school, before school, or during nonacademic homeroom periods), but were also
scheduled at community centers or at our research offices. Group sessions lasted for 45-60
minutes. The group sessions usually included 4-6 children. In addition to group sessions, each
child was planned to receive a total of 6 individual hour sessions at their school, on the
average of once every 6 to 8 weeks. The individual sessions were provided by the staff schoolfamily program specialist, and encouraged generalization of intervention effects.
The Coping Power Child Component program addressed the social-cognitive deficits
identified in prior studies; these skills were also the focus of our previously-evaluated 18 session
Anger Coping program. The Coping Power Child Component (Lochman, Lenhart, and Wells,
1996) was derived from an earlier Anger Coping Program (Lochman et al, 1987).
Group purpose and group rules. In the first group session, the purpose of the group is
articulated, and the group rules are generated by group members. Childrens adherence to these
rules (e.g. keeping your hands and feet to yourselves, no name-calling) leads to weekly points
that children can earn. Children can also earn points for positive participation during sessions,
and for accomplishing personal behavioral goals (explained in sessions 2 and 3). A poster board
is used to keep track of childrens accumulating points across sessions, and children are able to
spend their points for items on a menu of reinforcers. The total number of points accumulated by

Coping Power

participants in each group is also summed so that the group as a whole can attempt to earn grouplevel reinforcers (e.g. pizza parties).
Long-term and short-term goals. In the second and third sessions, children are asked to
identify long-term and short-term goals for themselves, and these goals lead to specific
behavioral goals that children commit themselves to achieve during the subsequent week, using
goal sheets. Teachers (or parents) are canvassed prior to these sessions to identify an array of
behavioral goals appropriate for each child, and goals are elicited from each child until they
suggest goals that have been suggested by the teachers or parents. It is critical that these
behavioral goals be clearly observable, and that the initial goals be of moderate difficulty, to
assist children in having successful experiences in the early stages of goal attainment. Each
childs goals are monitored on a daily basis by the teacher or parent, and the child earns points
based on their success. The goal-setting procedure continues throughout the course of the group,
and was found in earlier research to be an important method for enhancing childrens
improvement in the classroom and other settings outside of the meeting room.
Larry readily identified goals for himself, though initially he had much difficulty with
follow through. He often would forget his goal sheet or not work towards achieving his preselected goal. One of the interventions particularly effective with Larry was the opportunity to
earn tangible reinforcers. This point system was very motivating for Larry and he looked
forward to earning points that could later be traded in for small items which were typically
valued by young boys (baseball cards, special school supplies, small toys, etc.). He began to
remember to have his goal sheet signed by his teachers, and brought his goal sheet to group
regularly.
Organizational and study skills. Because of our explicit focus on assisting children to
adjust to the academic as well as the social demand of school, some specific methods for

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10

adapting to school tasks are addressed. Relatively early in the intervention each year (Session 9,
and the Supplementary Meeting between sessions 23 and 24 in the second year of intervention)
there are sessions on adjusting to the organizational and study skills required for adequate school
progress. These sessions particularly address how these organizational and study skills will
become even more important in middle school. This particular session can be actually
implemented at any time in the curriculum to coincide with key academic times (e.g., report card
dates), but it is most useful to provide this session at the same time that related issues are
covering in the parent groups. During one of the individual sessions Larry reported that he was
having a lot of difficulty in math. When asked if he was receiving any additional help, he replied
no. After Larrys mother was prompted to consult the school counselor, Larry began individual
tutoring services at his school.
Awareness of arousal and anger. Sessions four and five focus on childrens emotional
reactions in various problematic situations, especially focusing on their experience of anger in
response to provocation or frustration. Using an anger thermometer, children are assisted to
identify different levels of anger they may experience (e.g., rage, irritation, annoyance), and in
identifying the different types of problems which trigger these different levels of anger.
Larry learned how to use the anger thermometer to visualize the continuum of angry
states (from mildly upset, to angry, to very enraged). He also identified triggers that frequently
set him off, for example becoming mildly upset if someone touched his property, angry if a peer
tried to boost a fight, or very enraged if someone dissed or messed with his family. Larry
was able to recognize different physical cues (racing heartbeat, clenched fists, sweaty palms,
rapid breathing, etc.) as warning signals to let him know how intensely he was reacting to a
given situation. This early recognition of physical cues led Larry to be able to make a choice to
exit a situation before he reached the point of no return. Larry knew that if he became

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intensely angry in a situation he would not be able to exit, and would consequently make bad
choices with negative consequences. By recognizing these early cues Larry was often able to
either walk away from problem situations or, later in the program, seek adult assistance.
Anger management self regulation. This focus on self-awareness of the physiological
and behavioral signs of anger then leads to a major unit in the intervention on methods for anger
management (sessions 6-8, 10-11). Children are introduced to the use of coping self statements,
distraction techniques, and brief relaxation methods as means to handle the arousal associated
with anger without resorting to aggression. A series of activities designed to be progressively
more realistic are used to assist children in trying out these methods in vivo in the sessions.
Children first try to screen out distractions from peers during simple memory and building tasks,
then use the anger management skills during puppet role-plays, and finally use the skills during
taunting tasks with peers. It is important for leaders to model these skills at each stage of these
tasks, and to proactively coach children in their use of these skills during the taunting tasks. The
intervention is based on the assumption that children must learn how to handle the surge in
arousal and anger in response to a perceived provocation before they can successfully begin to
use problem-solving strategies.
When Larry was first introduced to this section of the curriculum he appeared somewhat
skeptical about whether or not he could learn better ways of handling his anger when provoked.
He initially reported that aggressive solutions were often effective when dealing with problem
situations. Rather than try to convince him otherwise, the staff focused instead on situations
when things didnt turn out the way he wanted and/or times that the negative consequences he
earned for his actions outweighed the benefits. An example of this was when Larry got into a
fight at school. Although he blamed the other student, stating he started it, both he and the other
student were both suspended for 10 days. He didnt feel as though he deserved the punishment

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yet he also didnt like being suspended from school. In one of our subsequent sessions the staff
used this problem situation to talk about things Larry could do in the future if confronted with a
similar situation. As long as I keep my cool, Im in control, He would like me to get angry.
Well Im going to disappoint him and I dont have to prove myself to anyone were some of
the suggestions given to Larry for things he might say or think to himself when trying to deal
with a difficult situation. Whenever possible, using real life problems that group members
brought into the sessions helped to effectively demonstrate the various coping skills being taught
in the program.
Problem identification and attribution re-training. Session 12 introduces the first part of
the problem solving model, known as Problem Identification, Choices, Consequences (PICC),
which children learn to use. This focus on accurate identification of the social problems that face
the children leads into several sessions (Sessions 13-15) on perspective taking. Role-playing and
discussion activities are used to illustrate how hard it often is to accurately understand another
persons intentions in a problem situation, resulting in retraining of the hostile attributional bias
which many aggressive children have. Although the primary focus of these activities is on peer
situations, aggressive children also often misperceive teachers intentions. Thus, a teacher
interview has been designed to address the perceived unfairness and harshness of teachers.
Most of Larrys interactions with his teacher thus far had been prompted by problem
behaviors that Larry was exhibiting in the classroom. His negative attributional bias extended to
adults, and thus he projected blame on his teacher for his classroom difficulties. In essence,
Larry felt the teacher was out to get him. Larry completed the teacher interview activity in a
one-to-one meeting with his teacher, permitting his teacher to share her experiences when she
was in school herself, and her goals and intentions when she is leading academic tasks in the
classroom and when she has to enforce rules in the classroom to permit learning to occur. This

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positive interchange began a gradual change in Larrys perception of his teacher, and in his
assumption of greater responsibility for his own behavior. In addition, his teacher was able to
gain a greater understanding of how hard Larry was working to change his behavior, and her
improved attitude toward him acted as further motivation.
Social problem-solving skills. The unit of the intervention with the largest number of
sessions involves the steps and the use of the PICC problem solving model (Sessions 16-22, 2427). Brainstorming discussions, as well as hands-on activities and use of PICC forms are used to
introduce the range of choices, or possible solutions, that children have in most social problem
situations, and then to introduce the range of consequences which result from these various
choices. The exercises also address how childrens social goals and their use of impulsive,
automatic processing can impair their problem-solving skills. The PICC model is then used on
childrens own problems. One time Larry came to group very upset about an incident that took
place between he and a non-group peer on his way to group. The group leader noticed that Larry
was upset and suggested that the group pick apart the problem using the PICC model. Larrys
newfound ability to utilize the group to assist him in coping with a difficult situation
demonstrated the effectiveness of this intervention strategy.
A particularly useful way to generate childrens active involvement in learning problemsolving is to have them as a group create a videotape of a problem situation with several possible
winning solutions (Sessions 20-22). Because they typically look forward to this task, the
video-taping activity tends to maintain childrens motivation in the program, even among these
high risk children. During the second year of the program, a series of sessions (Sessions 24-27)
address how the PICC model could be used in common problem situations with teachers,
siblings, and peers. The peer sessions focus on the difficulties many of these children experience

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with successfully joining ongoing activities of peers, and in negotiating with peers during
disagreements.
Peer pressure and involvement with nondeviant peers. The latter group sessions (28-32)
primarily address issues related to peer pressure, and childrens involvement in deviant peer
groups. These sessions focus on childrens awareness of peer pressure to participate in drug use,
and in various peer pressure coping strategies, using videotapes and role-plays. The dangers that
can be evident in childrens neighborhoods are addressed by having children complete
neighborhood surveys, emphasizing dangers that can lead to peer pressure to engage in deviant
behavior or that can lead to violence. These sessions also assist children in thinking about where
they stand in existing peer groups at their schools and in their neighborhoods, and how they can
become progressively more involved with non-deviant groups of peers.
As Larry was preparing to enter middle school, his behavior and attitude changed
significantly. He began hanging out with a group of neighborhood kids that were getting into
trouble. During these latter group sessions at school Larry was able to talk about issues
involving negative peer influences. He also shared that one of the benefits associated with this
type of affiliation was safety. Larry viewed this deviant peer group in his unsafe community as a
means of protection, rather than a potential hazard. Until Larry and his family moved away from
this environment, the negative peer culture remained a potential significant influence in his life.
Coping Power Child Component: Individual Sessions
The planned individual sessions between Coping Power staff and the children were used
primarily for monitoring and reinforcing childrens attainment of classroom and social behavior
goals (e.g., avoiding fights with peers; resisting peer pressure). The one-to-one sessions also
provided for individual discussion about the general information provided during group sessions
and about coping with specific attributional biases and social problem-solving deficiencies

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children have had in recent social conflicts with peers, teachers or parents. In addition, it is
anticipated that the individual sessions could help to increase the positive relationships between
the children and their group leaders, thus defusing childrens conflicts and oppositional
behaviors in groups, and increasing the group leaders social reinforcement value to the children.
During one of these individual meetings Larry talked about feeling unsafe in his
neighborhood. He mentioned having heard gunshots the previous evening, which made him feel
more fearful about going outside to play with friends. This information helped his
interventionist to better understand the environment in which Larry was residing, and provided
more awareness and insight into his world. The staff interventionist was also able to follow up
with his mother, Belinda about the situation.
Coping Power Parent Component: Group Sessions
The Coping Power parent component is a 16 session parent group program with sessions
distributed over the same 18 month period in which the child component also occurred (5th and
6th grade years). Parents met in groups of up to 12 parents or parent dyads with two co-leaders.
Assertive attempts were made to include mothers and fathers in parent groups, although in most
cases only one parent (usually the mother) attended.
The content of the Coping Power parent component is derived from social learning
theory-based parent training programs developed and evaluated by prominent clinicianresearchers in the field of child aggression (McMahon & Forehand, in press; Patterson, Reid,
Jones and Conger, 1975). However, in addition to these standard parent training skills, parents
in Coping Power also learned additional skills that support the social-cognitive and problemsolving skills that their children learned in the child component. These parent skills are
introduced at the same time that the respective child skills are introduced so that parent s and
children can work together at home on what they are learning. For example, parents learn to set

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up homework support structures and to reinforce organizational skills around homework

completion at the same time that children are learning organization skills in the Coping Power
child component. Parents learn to apply the problem-solving (PICC) model to family problem
solving so that child skills learned in the group will be prompted and reinforced in the family
context. A final section of the Coping Power parent component includes two sessions on stress
management for parents. Part of the rationale for this is to help parents learn to remain calm and
in control during stressful or irritating disciplinary interactions with their children. The sessions
also emphasize the importance of parents taking care of themselves for their own sake.
Attaining parents active involvement in the intervention is one of the harder tasks in
implementing the program. Initially it was very difficult to engage Larrys mother, Belinda.
Numerous home visit attempts were made to encourage participation in the parent component of
the program. She appeared interested and often stated that she planned to attend sessions, yet
during the first semester of the intervention she attended no meetings. In response to outreach
efforts Belinda gradually began to engage in the program. After attending a first session,
regularly scheduled phone calls and home visits were arranged to review material from previous
sessions that she had missed. Now feeling more comfortable, she attended each successive
session. She was also given individual attention to review ongoing homework suggestions from
recent parent meetings. She readily joined in and became an active participant in the group. She
expressed regret at not having attended during the first year and often said how helpful the parent
meetings were. She was sorry to see the program come to an end.
Orientation to parent training. In the first parent group session, an orientation to parent
training is provided. This includes a non-blame-oriented framework for why learning parenting
skills is important in assisting high-risk children through the transition to middle school and a

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presentation of the structure of the group. Parents also complete a checklist of positive and
negative child behaviors with reference to their particular child.
Subsequently, the leaders present the more formal content of the meeting which includes
an explanation, in lay language, of social learning principles including the concepts of positive
and negative consequences for child behavior. An A-B-C (Antecedents-BehaviorConsequences) chart is introduced in the session and used in all subsequent sessions. As new
parenting skills are introduced, they are entered onto the chart in the appropriate column (e.g.,
"parent praise is written in the column under C). Leaders discuss the specific skills of labeled
and unlabelled praise in this session, and the group ends with a homework assignment to practice
using praise for prosocial child behaviors at home.
Academic support at home. Because session two occurs early in the school year it is
designed to coordinate with child component meeting that are focusing on skills for academic
success and what parents can do to support their children in these area. The primary emphasis is
on how parents can support the completing of homework by the child, and Homework Contracts
are introduced. There is discussion of setting up homework rules, structures, and routines;
providing an appropriate place and materials for homework; and praising and rewarding children
for completing homework. For children with organizational difficulties, parents learn how to
assist the child in organizing completed homework papers and returning them to schools. For
example, parents discuss the importance of checking the childs homework after it has been
completed and prompting the child to place his completed homework in his bookbag.
Belinda initially reported that Larry did not have a regular homework routine.
Homework was done late at night when Larry was too tired to be effective, or in a rushed fashion
in the early morning as he was trying to prepare for school. Belinda was skeptical at first
regarding the likelihood of success of a structured homework routine. However, at the urging of

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other parents in the group, who had used this strategy successfully, she agreed to try setting up a
homework routine. She was given specific instruction about homework routines (consistency of
time, place, etc.), but also allowed some flexibility to tailor this to her own home and family
routines. At the next parent meeting she reported success for Larry in completing homework
(three out of five nights).
Praise and ignoring. In session 3, parents learn how to catch children in prosocial
behavior with further emphasis on rewarding and praising their children when they catch them
being good. Parents refer back to the checklist of positive and negative behaviors that they
completed in the first session and select two positive behaviors from the list to work on. Specific
skills for verbal praise and nonverbal rewards are discussed. Conversely, parents also learn in
this session to ignore minor negative behaviors when they occur. There is a great deal of
discussion of minor behaviors that can be ignored versus more serious misbehaviors that should
not be ignored. Leaders may model ignoring as a skill and/or may ask parents to role play with
them how to ignore a child who is engaging in minor disruptive behavior.
In response to the session material on positive reinforcement, Belinda voiced concern
about praising her son for doing things he is supposed to do. One of the behaviors that she had
checked on the behavior checklist was argues a lot. In group we discussed the concept of
catching your child being good and providing positive consequences. Though Belinda
remained skeptical, she was willing to contract to try praising good behavior for two weeks to
see what happens. At the next meeting Belinda reported that she was successful in carrying out
the homework assignment and noticed that it was useful.
Instructions, rules and expectations. Sessions 4 and 5 focus on the antecedents to child
compliance, giving good instructions and setting up age appropriate rules and expectations.
Leaders present examples of good instructions (i.e., those that elicit compliance) and bad

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instructions (i.e., those that elicit noncompliance from children). Humorous examples are given
and parents are invited to identify which types of instructions they typically use. Examples of
bad instructions are repeating instructions over and over again, and giving instructions in the
form of a question rather than in the form of a declaration. Examples of good instructions are
giving no more than one or two instructions at a time and following instructions with a period of
silence so that the child has a chance to comply. The importance of establishing clear, age
appropriate rules and expectations is also discussed and parents are invited to share examples of
rules and how to communicate them effectively to children. Many parents selected No hitting
or No namecalling as rule for the house. Some parents posted these rules on the refrigerator
door or on a family communication poster board. Use of these structures in the home assisted
with transfer of skills from the group setting to the home environment.
Discipline and punishment. Sessions 6 and 7 are devoted to the topic of discipline and
punishment. Because this is a delicate topic for some parents, parents are first asked about their
ideas about appropriate punishment procedures for children this age. Alternatives to physical
punishment are then presented including time-out, response-cost procedures (e.g., privilege
removal) and the use of contingent work chores as punishment. At the end of the session,
parents are asked to select one punishment procedure that they will try on a consistent basis for
one to two weeks and then report back to the group. Role-play techniques are used in some
groups (where parents are comfortable doing so) to illustrate the appropriate use of punishment
procedures such as time-out and to facilitate transfer of skills to home.
Belinda talked openly about her frustration in parenting Larry. He refused to comply
with her directions and often talked back to her. She wanted some suggestions on how to handle
this problem. During our sessions on discipline and punishment she began to see how ineffective
some of her past strategies had been, and in particular saw how damaging it was to her as a

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disciplinarian when she did not follow through on announced consequences. After practicing in
group with some new techniques, using role play to help her feel comfortable with them, she
chose to implement the work-chore punishment procedure (assignment of extra chores as a
consequence for misbehavior) as outlined in the manual. She began seeing improvement upon
the consistent use of this intervention.
Stress management. Sessions 8 and 9 depart from traditional parent skills training and
focus instead on stress management skills for parents. While a general definition of stress is
given, there is particular focus on the stress involved in parenting. The importance of parents
setting aside time to take care of themselves is introduced and parents are asked about their
own ideas about how to operationalize that concept. Then, active relaxation training is
introduced and the group leaders lead the parents through an exercise of autogenic relaxation
(using guided imagery). In addition, the idea that cognitions about ones child can contribute to
parenting stress and irritable overreactions is introduced and parents give examples of
dysfunctional cognitions associated with parenting. Homework focuses around practicing
relaxation; implementing procedures for taking care of oneself and catching and modifying
dysfunctional cognitions when they occur.
The sessions on stress management were particularly important for Belinda. As an
introduction to this session, parents were asked to do an activity involving a pie chart. They
were asked to draw a circle or pie and to label slices of the pie to correspond to the different
roles they play in life (e.g., being a parent; being a worker, being a friend, being a partner).
Parents were instructed to identify the many things that they do and to make the size of each slice
correspond to the amount of time spent in each area. When asked to share her pie chart with the
group, Belinda was surprised at how small the slice devoted to taking care of myself was in
comparison to the other slices. Likewise, most of the parents either did not have any space

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devoted to taking care of themselves, or if they did, it was by far the smallest slice. The
importance of taking care of oneself was then discussed in the contexts of personal stress
management as well as maintaining the energy to care for others.
Planning for summer and for the transition to middle school. In these sessions, specific
community resources for summer are described and, consistent with the emphasis on the
transition to middle school, school counselors from the middle schools are invited to come and
talk to parents about the middle schools. They discuss how their childs school experience will
change; some of the stresses children face in this transition; how parents can access and work
with middle schools and what parents can do assist their child with coping with this transition.
Family cohesion building. In the fall of the second school year (most children are now in
the 6th grade) parent groups begin again. The first session of this year (Session 12 overall) opens
with a welcome and reorientation to parent group and a review of parents and childrens
activities over the summer. The importance of setting up academic support structures at home
(e.g., homework rules) early in the school year is emphasized and parents are encouraged to
involve themselves in their childs new middle school. The importance of family cohesion is
discussed even though children are now in middle school, and parents share ideas about how to
conduct family pleasant activities with their children.
During the session on family cohesion building Belinda talked about the lack of fun
times for the family. Their busy schedule, combined with very limited financial resources
presented real barriers to needed relaxation for the family. During our brain storming session
Belinda was able to generate a couple of ideas to try to implement between that session and the
next. She decided to have a family fun night at home on Fridays, during which time the family
could play board games and have popcorn. While these sound like simple solutions (or regular
routines) for many families, for Belinda it was a first step in structuring some planned special

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22

time with her children. That she was able to do so within the real and severe financial limitations
on her was empowering to her as well.
Family problem-solving and family communication. The next set of parent group
sessions (Sessions 13 and 14) focus on family problem solving and family communication.
Parents are taught the same problem solving model (the PICC model) that children have learned
in their child groups, and parents are encouraged to use the PICC model at home with their child
in addressing parent-child as well as sibling-sibling conflict. A child who is particularly skillful
in using the PICC model is often asked to come to this session and role-play with his/her parent
the use of the PICC model for the group. Parents and children who role-played in group
experienced directly how these skills could be used at home. Other parent group members who
observed the role-play often reported that watching a parent and child actually using the PIC
procedures successfully, made them want to go home and try the procedures with their own
child. In this session, strategies are discussed for managing child disruptive behavior outside of
home, including point systems and privilege removal techniques. Discussion focuses on how
such strategies could be used at the grocery store, at church, at a neighbor or family members
home and in other relevant settings outside of home.
Long-term planning. Session 15 involved a focus on long-term planning. The
importance of parents continuing to be behavior managers and school and community advocates
for their child after the end of the parent training program was emphasized. Leaders discussed
strategies for long term maintenance and also presented material on school and community
resources that parents could use in subsequent years.
Termination session. In a final, termination session (Session 16), leaders presented an
overview of the parent training program and elicited parents feelings and reactions to the
program and about the ending of the program. Often a celebratory event was planned (picnic or

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23

light supper) and leaders and parents shared their final observations about the group. Where
needed and ethically indicated, specific referral recommendations for treatment were made for
some children and families.
Coping Power Parent Component: Home Visits
Home visits were conducted with the majority of families participating in the parent
component. The primary objectives of home visits were to help promote and sustain engagement
of the families, assist them in problem solving situations, and assess home environmental
issues/needs. In addition, families are supported and assisted as they began implementing skills
covered in parenting group sessions. Assessing families and linking them with available
resources as well as assisting them in the process of obtaining these services was yet another
goal. Telephone calls to the families were used at times to accomplish these goals, in place of
actual visits to the homes.
In addition to these regularly planned home visits, periodic home visits were also
conducted with many of the families in the study during the period of active group intervention.
Home visits were generally scheduled for specific reasons, were problem focused in nature, and
did not follow a set curriculum. For those families without a phone or otherwise hard to reach,
outreach efforts were necessary in order to establish a relationship with them and encourage their
involvement in the program. As was true in the case of Belinda, were multiple attempts not
made to reach her at home, she never would have followed through and participated in the
program. Meeting parents on their own turf often seemed to help bridge the gap that
sometimes interfered with the process of establishing a relationship with them. Once the bond
was made, assisting hard to reach and/or engage families to actively participate in the parent
component of the project became a far less challenging task. Home visits were sometimes

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conducted when a parenting session was missed in order to help parents catch up on what was
covered during the time they were out. Due to the sequencing of the curriculum, giving parents
the opportunity to obtain and review missed session content was viewed as an integral
component of the intervention protocol. This enabled parents to effectively implement the newly
learned parenting skills and techniques that were covered in the program.
Home visits were also scheduled when problems emerged that either did not seem to be
appropriate for bringing up in the group session or had to do with a parent that was not attending
group. An example of this type of home visit took place when Larry stopped attending school.
After the holiday break he did not return to school. The interventionist eventually was able to
locate Belinda, and discovered they had moved to another home that was in a different school
district. The focus of the session dealt with helping Belinda to come up with a plan for getting
her kids back in school.
Coping Power Universal Intervention Components
Universal teacher component. The universal intervention known as Coping with the
Middle School Transitions (CMST) had two components, parent meetings and teacher inservice
meetings, designed to promote home-school involvement, and to address parents upcoming
concerns about transition to middle school. The teacher intervention component consisted of
five 2-hour meetings during the fifth-grade year, with six teachers meeting together with a
Coping staff. Participants earned CEU hours for credit towards license renewal. Teachers were
also paid a stipend for their attendance. Meetings took place after school and the location varied
depending on the needs of individual groups. The first meeting included a focus group approach
in which teachers identified critical middle school transition problems and coping strategies, and
they identified how parents can become involved with school and with their children to facilitate
this coping. Teachers assisted in planning for the first and subsequent parent meetings, and

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25

teachers are encouraged to attend these parent meetings. In this meeting, and in the subsequent
four teacher meetings, there were a combination of didactic presentation of information on the
topic of that day, and time for teacher problem-solving around the topic, following the format
used in prior research on teacher consulting to facilitate childrens social competence and selfcontrol (Lochman, Lampron, Gemmer, Harris & Wyckoff, 1989).
The topics for the subsequent teacher meetings were: (2) Methods for promoting positive
parent involvement in the school setting and in their childs education; (3) Enhancing childrens
study skills, abilities to organize work, and completion of homework, including a focus on
childrens self control, the parent-teacher communications around homework, and childrens
social bond to school; (4) Enhancing childrens social competence, by emphasizing teacher
facilitation of childrens emerging social problem-solving strategies; and (5) Enhancing
childrens self control and self regulation, through conflict management strategies involving peer
negotiation and teacher use of proactive classroom management.
Teachers that actively participated in this component of our project expressed a high level
of satisfaction with the collaborative model of the in-service program. Teachers are well trained
in working collaboratively with their peers on academic issues yet rarely have the opportunity to
do so in areas related to social development and behavior management. Identifying the teachers
as the expert, and encouraging them to share with us and one another their suggestions, strategies
and experiences in the classroom aided us in the process of obtaining this valuable information.
Universal parent component. The SMST Parent Meetings consisted of four sessions
scheduled during the fifth grade year, and the sixth grade year. The parent/caretakers of all
children in universal intervention classrooms were invited to attend each of these meetings. The
first Parent Meeting session addressed issues related to childrens success in school and
promoted positive parent involvement with school and their child. The session promoted home-

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26

school connections, especially around management of homework, and focused on optimal

methods for remaining in communication with teachers. Reinforcement of organized study
behavior was emphasized. Session (2) addressed promoting childrens successful relations with
peers, and what parents can do to promote childrens problem-solving skills in developing new
friends and handling difficult peer situations. Session (3) was in the spring of the fifth grade year,
and addressed parents concerns about the middle school transition, and the academic, social and
behavioral tasks that children have to master during this transition. During the sixth grade year,
groups met with the same composition of parents as in the prior year. Session (4) addressed how
children are coping with middle school, and the obstacles to adequate adjustment there. This
session prepared parents for upcoming adolescent issues, relating to peer pressure, deviant peer
groups, need for parental monitoring, and emergence of adolescent risk-taking behaviors. To
promote parents attendance at their Parent Meetings, a variety of presentation modes were used
at each session (e.g. videos, outside speakers, discussion), and offered light snacks.
Description of Coping Power Participants
High-risk Children Who Received Indicated Prevention Intervention
Coping Power was designed to serve children at the developmental period of transition
from elementary school to middle school, who are deemed to be at risk for later substance use
and abuse. Because it is a prevention intervention program, intervention in the late elementary
school years when substance abuse rates are still relatively low, is designed to prevent or retard
the rapid acceleration in substance use that occurs over the middle school and high school years.
Children were selected for the program on the basis of key risk factors for later substance
use. These risk factors involved moderate to high levels of aggressive and disruptive behavior.
During the first year of the CSAP-funded project 245 preadolescent boys and girls in the
Durham, NC public school system, were selected from 17 fourth grade classrooms. Schools

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27

were selected primarily from the poorer sections of the city (based on percentage of children
receiving free/reduced lunch). Fourth grade teachers rated all children in their classes on three
items, using 5 point scales, about how verbally aggressive, physically aggressive and disruptive
the children were. The parents of the 31% most aggressive children were then contacted
regarding their consent for participation in the project and 52% gave their consent, resulting in a
total of 245 high-risk children. Of these, the ratio of boys to girls was about 2 to 1.
Approximately 78% of the participants were African American and approximately 22% were
Caucasian. There were 2 Hispanic families in the sample.
Non-risk Children Who Received Universal Intervention
To address the social ecology around the targeted, high-risk children, and thus to have a
greater impact, Coping Power also included a Universal Intervention component. This
component was offered to all children in the same classrooms in which there was at least one
target high-risk child, resulting in 672 children offered this component. The teachers and parents
of these children were also invited to participate in the Universal Intervention component as
described in a later section.
Program Effectiveness
As indicated in a previous section, the Coping Power program was designed to effect
change in four classes of predictor variables for child and adolescent substance abuse:
Childrens social competence, childrens self regulation and self control; childrens school
bonding; and parenting investment and skills. The ultimate goal, of course, is to prevent or
retard the development of substance use and abuse. Follow-up studies show that the Coping
Power program has produced significant preventive effects in childrens substance use and a
number of improvements in the predictor variables presumed to mediate substance use.

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28

By the end of intervention, even though relatively few sixth graders are using substances
overall, the Coping Power program has led children to have significantly lower levels of
substance use (an overall score of tobacco, alcohol and marijuana use) than did control children
(Lochman & Wells, 2002b). Teachers rated the Coping Power intervention children as having
improvements in social skills, intervention children perceived that their social competence had
improved, and intervention children tended to have less aggressive beliefs and were less angered
by social problems. Teachers also rated the intervention children as having improved behavior,
and both teachers and parents rated the intervention children as having lower levels of proactive
aggression by post-intervention. Intervention effects on school bonding were more limited,
although intervention children tended to perceive they were more academically competent.
Intervention parents had become more supportively involved with their children. On several of
these outcomes, the children who had received both the indicated Coping Power program
targeted at high risk children and the universal intervention had the best post-intervention results,
indicating the importance of nesting targeted interventions for high risk children within universal
interventions. At a one-year follow-up, the Coping Power children had significantly lower rates
of self-reported substance use, and of self-reported delinquency, and higher levels of behavioral
improvement in school (Lochman & Wells, 2003). These preventive outcomes were the same for
boys and girls, and for children of different racial groups.
Perhaps most notably, these findings replicate the follow-up results of another sample,
this one consisting only of aggressive boys (Lochman & Wells, 2004). In this second study, the
boys who received Coping Power had lower rates of substance use, delinquency, and physically
aggressive behaviors at school one year following the interventions end, in comparison to
control children (Lochman & Wells, 2004). Mediation analyses have found that these latter
preventive effects were mediated by the programs effects on the mutable child and parent

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29

processes that were the focus of the intervention, including childrens hostile attributions,
childrens expectations that aggression has positive outcomes, an internal locus of control over
events in the childrens lives, and parents consistency in their parenting practices (Lochman &
Wells, 2002a).
Conclusion
The available evidence of the effects of the Coping Power program are encouraging, and
indicate that the program has an effect on aspects of childrens problem behaviors, and on their
substance use at the end of intervention, and at a one-year follow-up. This intervention was
carefully designed to impact factors that have been found to influence adolescent substance use,
and thus addresses childrens social competence, self-regulation, school bonding, and parental
involvement. Delivery of this form of intervention at the point of childrens transition from
elementary school into middle school appears to be useful and timely. The success of the
program depends in part on the effective management of various common implementation
issues, including adequate participation by teachers and especially parents in the program
(Lochman & Wells, 1996). In this regard, a problem-solving, collaborative relationship with
parents and teachers is as critical as it is with the children involved in the program. Careful
attention to training and consultation are also critical for successful implementation of the
Coping Power program.

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30

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