Afternoons R.O.C.K. in Indiana

The Division of Mental Health and Addiction (DMHA) and its community-based partners provide programs statewide such as Afternoons R.O.C.K. in Indiana.

Afternoons R.O.C.K. in Indiana is an after school drug prevention program for youth aged 10 - 14 years. The acronym "R.O.C.K." represents the mission of the program to provide Recreation, Object lessons, Culture and values and Knowledge via active and entertaining Focused and Supportive Prevention Activities designed to teach youth about social and media influences, conflict resolution and refusal/resistance skills, gang and violence prevention and the structuring of leisure time to be free of alcohol, tobacco and other drug use.

Born of a need for constructive, supervised activities for youth during the after school hours of 3pm to 6pm, Afternoons R.O.C.K. in Indiana provides youth with a prescribed strategy of structured and unstructured activities that promote positive social relationships and skills during these "three critical hours" of unsupervised time during which today's youth often find themselves tempted to engage in risky behaviors such as experimentation with alcohol, tobacco and other drugs as well as vandalism, gang activity and sexual experimentation.

Afternoons R.O.C.K. in Indiana programs are targeted toward youth 10 to 14 years of age, as this developmental period has been identified as a "window of increased vulnerability" when youth are more likely to begin using alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. Indeed, results from the annual survey Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Use by Indiana Children and Adolescents, administered by the Indiana Prevention Resource Center, reveal that almost two-thirds of all new experimentation with drugs among youth in Indiana occurs between the end of sixth grade and the end of ninth grade.

Since the program's inception in 1997, the Indiana Prevention Resource Center has been contracted by the Family Social Services Administration, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, to provide technical assistance to 14 Local Prevention Services Coalitions that bring the Afternoons R.O.C.K. in Indiana program to targeted youth in each of Indiana's 92 counties. Indiana Prevention Resource staff provides extensive technical assistance and support for the Afternoons R.O.C.K in Indiana programs including comprehensive support in the areas of contract requirements, data management, program management, program design and implementation, as well as evaluation. The Indiana Prevention Resource Center strives to encourage the incorporation of state-of-the-art prevention research and theory into a community-level prevention practice based on "best practices" strategies for prevention.