School of Social Work’s ‘keepin’ it REAL’ substance use prevention program to expand across Sonora this spring
From left: Sonoran officials Guadalupe González Lizárraga, subsecretary of educational policies and social participation, state of Sonora, and Froylán Gámez Gamboa, secretary of education and culture, state of Sonora, join ASU Regents Professor Flavio F. Marsiglia, director of the ASU Global Center for Applied Health Research, in signing a memorandum of understanding authorizing teaching Mantente REAL in Sonoran public middle schools. Photo courtesy of Beatriz Vega de Luna
More than 7,000 seventh graders in the Mexican state of Sonora will enroll this spring in an Arizona State University program that has been teaching how to prevent substance use to thousands of youths throughout the world.
Keepin’ it REAL (kiR) — in Spanish, Mantente REAL — will be part of the curriculum in more than 100 schools in Sonora starting this spring, said Regents Professor Flavio Marsiglia of the School of Social Work.
Marsiglia directs ASU’s Global Center for Applied Health Research (GCAHR), where kiR was created in 2003 to give children from lower-income communities in the United States and other less prosperous nations access to effective substance use prevention often only available to kids from wealthier areas.
“Even when access is available in some nations, too few prevention programs are culturally appropriate or sustainable," Marsiglia said. “Keepin’ it REAL does this and cultivates youth health in feasible and replicable ways.”
Over more than two decades, kiR has spread across the United States and today is in 14 countries, including Spain, Uruguay and Guatemala, as well as in other parts of Mexico, including Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.
But starting in January, Mantente REAL — culturally adapted from the original kiR — will be taught across Sonora, which borders Arizona. This fall, Marsiglia signed an agreement establishing kiR with Sonoran educational officials.
GCAHR educators have been instructing 32 trainers in the Sonoran county seat of Hermosillo. The newly certified trainers will in turn train teachers at middle schools across Sonora.
The University of Sonora (UNISON) will conduct a statewide evaluation with the support of methodologists from GCAHR. Funded by the state of Sonora, the substance use and violence prevention intervention curriculum will reach about 7,500 seventh graders during its first semester.
Compared to traditional programs that focus on individuals using substances, Mantente REAL also pays attention to those who currently are not, in an effort to keep them from starting, Marsiglia said.
Marsiglia said that, while the original kiR only dealt with substance use and concentrated more on males, it has since added a gender element.
Today the program also includes violence prevention instruction.
“Kids know what’s going on. They wanted both,” Marsiglia said.
Sonoran educational officials applauded the program.
Guadalupe González Lizárraga, undersecretary of Sonora’s Office of Educational Policies and Social Participation, expressed her support of the expansion of Mantente REAL to prevent addiction in Sonoran schools.
“Now, the secondary students have tools to make informed decisions, build emotional resilience and affront challenges with confidence,” González Lizárraga said.
“The program also includes a strong training component,” said Migdelina Andrea Espinoza Romero, the office’s general director. “It helps them to manage student motivation during classroom sessions.”
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