This website is brought to you by Overdose Lifeline, an official Preventure provider in the U.S.
PreVenture is a mental health and early intervention program for youth ages 12-17. Developed by Patricia Conrod, a Clinical Psychologist and Professor of Psychiatry at The University of Montreal and used around the world, PreVenture is designed to help youth learn useful coping skills, set long term goals, and channel their personality towards achieving them.
Overdose Lifeline is licensed to train facilitators in PreVenture in the U.S.
of adolescents ages 12–17 admit to illicit drug use
of 12-year-olds admit to having tried alcohol
If you are a teacher, mental health practitioner, counselor, social worker, and/or prevention specialist, you can become a certified PreVenture facilitator and bring this proven, evidence-based intervention to your community. Connect with a PreVenture team member at Overdose Lifeline.
“As a Certified PreVenture Facilitator, you will be able to make a valuable contribution towards helping teens understand how their personality impacts their life and assist them with learning skills to help them make the best possible choices.”
Unlike most universal programs that offer generic coping skills and address normative attitudes around substance misuse, PreVenture focuses expressly on promoting cognitive behavioral strategies that have been shown to improve mental health. The intervention is delivered to youth in a workshop format and introduces cognitive behavioral strategies and coping skills based on individual personality styles. Youth fill out a brief personality questionnaire (SURPS) which aligns them with the personality style most relevant to them.
Over a 2-day period you will learn about the evidence base and theoretical approach of Preventure and walk through a hands-on practical experience delivering the PreVenture program using Motivational Interviewing (MI) exercises and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) principles. Conducted online*
Upon completion of the full low fidelity facilitator training, you will be certified to deliver the PreVenture Program. For continued access to delivering the PreVenture Program, certification must be renewed annually on April 1st of each year
As part of your training, you will gain access to the preventure.us website which includes a personalized Facilitator dashboard with tools and support you’ll need to deliver the program successfully, such as:
We encourage you to seek the resources available to you through the www.preventureprogram.com
A facilitator can obtain high-fidelity certification if they undergo one round of supervision for one full workshop. These can be done in live settings with youth, or done in a mock facilitation. The facilitator would record their facilitation, then send to Overdose Lifeline for evaluation. The facilitator and Overdose Lifeline supervisor would then meet for 1 hour. High-fidelity supervision is not required for facilitation.
These are the qualifications required to be a PreVenture facilitator:
OR
We recommend there to be at least two fully committed facilitators within an organization or community. It is recommended that a community or organization consider the number of adolescents in their area, and base the number of facilitators on this information.
A facilitator should plan to help recruit participating organizations/schools, schedule and screen adolescents, and deliver both workshops for each of the four personality groups. On average, facilitators should plan to spend at least one-half day to screen and score students, and one day for each set of workshops. Time commitments will vary across regions.
Yes, anyone implementing the program, including screening, is required to obtain consent from the parents of adolescents. Passive consent is recommended in order to allow for the maximum amount of participation in the program. Parents must be provided with adequate information regarding the program, its implementation, and any risks that may be involved. Please refer to your state and local laws for all applicable regulations.
PreVenture is designed for adolescents ages 12-17, and thus is suited for middle-school to high-school aged students only.
All students must be screened before they are placed in a workshop and workshops must be delivered in a personality-focused manner. This process is outlined during the facilitator training.
Yes. If it is more appropriate for a particular context to include all participants in workshops, this is feasible. If there is a need, and resources are available to deliver to the whole population, facilitators can feel comfortable doing this. Alternatively, the program can be delivered in the traditional selective manner. This more selective approach targets 90% of the youth who will go on to develop clinically significant symptoms.
90-minutes is the maximum time that should be spent during a workshop, however, workshops may take less time to complete. The time to finish a workshop session will vary on group size and student participation.
The recommendation is to deliver the program via two 90-minute sessions as was the case in clinical trials. However, depending on your population, it is possible to deliver the program in three 30-minute sessions or four 45-minute sessions.
The screening process involves placing students in the workshop most relevant to their self reported interests and preferences. Workshop assignments are not revealed or discussed with anyone outside of the program facilitators. Students also establish and agree to a confidentiality agreement with one another at the start of the first workshop. The establishment of ground rules and building trust is an essential component of the program.
First and foremost, PreVenture is completely voluntary and a student should never be required to participate if they do not wish to. The workshops are designed to be facilitator mediated peer-to-peer skill building, and thus it is essential to the program that youth participation is voluntary.
No, there is no other follow-up once workshop #2 is completed for each of the personality groups. The program is designed to be brief, while remaining effective. Screening – Workshop #1 – Workshop #2 – Done.
