The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services reports that 10% of adolescents self-report illicit drug use in the past month across Kentucky.  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.  

McCreary 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 Life Skills Training (LST) program in rural Kentucky counties.   As a part of this grant, McCreary County received approximately $1,600 in facilitator training at no cost to the county, and $1,380 in program materials to implement the program at McCreary County Middle School.  

McCreary County Extension Agents were trained to implement the program.  Throughout the course of the 2021-2022 school year, approximately 42 students participated in the 15 lesson program.  On post-test surveys, 95% of McCreary 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.