The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services reports that 10% of adolescents self-report illicit drug use in the past month.  Substance use prevention programming is critical to the prevention, delayed onset, and/or early identification of substance use.  The Life Skills Training (LST) program, developed by Botvin and colleagues, is one of the most successful substance use prevention programs available for use. It teaches a variety of personal self-management skills and social skills in order to increase perceived self-efficacy and reduce the perceived incentives of substance use in youth and young adults.  

 Lee County was identified as a county to invest in as a part of a Rural Opioid Technical Assistance grant secured by University of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension, to provide funding to institute Botvin’s LST program in rural Kentucky counties.   As a part of this grant, Lee County received approximately $1,600 in facilitator training at no cost to the county, and $540 in program materials to implement the program at Lee County Middle School.  

 Lee County Extension Agents and Program Assistant were trained to implement the program.  Throughout the course of the 2021-2022 school year, approximately 51 6^th grade students participated in the 15-lesson program. The Lee County Extension Agents and Program assistant provided bi-weekly lessons for 8 weeks, seeing the students frequently allowed for the students to be more familiar and comfortable participating during the lesson. Students learned skills which included making decisions, self-image, social and communication skills, assertiveness, resolving conflicts, the dangers of illegal substance use, and coping with anxiety and anger.  On post-test surveys, 96% of Lee County students who participated in the LST program reported that they would use a relaxation strategy to cope with stress, as opposed to engaging in deviant or unhealthy behavior. Lee County Extension Agents and Program Assistant will follow these 51 students through 7^th and 8^th grade and continue to build on the knowledge they have gained through the Botvin Life Skills Training program this year.

 After participating in the Botvin LST program, one student reported no longer self-harming because of the coping skills she learned.