The APT Addiction Prevention Integrative Strategy

In the past decade, the Addiction Prevention Centre (APC) has been almost exclusively focused on the development and delivery of the Apt strategy—an addiction prevention integrative approach aimed at in-school youth. Apt—the name given to the strategy—relates to the notion that the proposed activities will enable teenagers and the most significant adults in their lives to become more capable and competent: more apt to take actions to prevent the problems related to alcohol and drug use in adolescence.

Components of the Apt Integrative Strategy

Apt is Québec’s very first integrative prevention strategy. It includes a drug information booklet and five programs aimed at teenagers and the most significant adults in their lives.

1. Drugs: Know the facts, Cut your risks: Information
2. Apt My independence matters to me!: Awareness
3. Apt group: Universal prevention
4. Apt parents: Universal prevention
5. Apt individual: Targeted prevention
6. Apt Teachers: Universal prevention

Objectives of the Apt Integrative Strategy

• Persuade teenagers who do not use drugs or alcohol not to start
• Delay the age at which teenage non-users begin to use drugs or alcohol
• Convince teenage users to stop or curb their consumption
• Reduce the risks associated with consumption, especially for at-risk users (i.e. teenagers with an emerging addiction

Key features of the Apt Integrative Strategy

• All the Apt strategy programs were the subject of experimental evaluation, including pre/post testing and control groups
• The strategy involves various levels of intervention (friends, family members, community, media)
• The strategy is based on teenagers’ beliefs
• It accounts for the stages in young people’s 
development (experiences and knowledge)
• It brings together several partners, including the school community
• It is available in French and English
• In Québec, the Apt individual model is the only scientifically validated targeted prevention program aimed directly at young people with an emerging addiction

To download the PDF version of the brochure, click here.