Florida's Challenge: A Guide to Educating Substance-Exposed Children. Participant's Workbook [with Videotape].

This training package helps Florida educators working with substance-exposed children in day care programs and prekindergarten, kindergarten, and elementary school classrooms. The workbook was developed to be used within a 1- or 2-day training session facilitated by trainers or as a self-instruction learning tool used in conjunction with a 45-minute companion videotape. The areas of the training package are: (1) "Introduction," providing information on the incidence of at-risk children, substance exposure, costs related to substance exposure and special education, and myths about substance-exposed children; (2) "Medical Aspects," describing the most common drugs, physical symptoms of substance use, drug effects on fetal and infant development, and long-term effects on toddlers and older children; (3) "The Home and Community Environment," including information on the child's place in the substance-abusing family, attachment and substance abuse, and risk and protective factors in the community, school, family, and among peers; (4) "The School and Classroom Environment," elaborating on the roles of various staff in working with substance-exposed children, ways to build in protective factors in the classroom and school environment, including a self-evaluation for the school and classroom settings; and (5) "Behaviors and Interventions," discussing motor, language, cognitive, and social/emotional development and suggesting ways teachers and caregivers can work with substance-exposed children in each area within a child-centered curriculum. Each part of the workbook includes an initial page providing directions for completing the lesson within each part. Resource information, copies of the training fact sheets, and lesson worksheets follow each direction page. The workbook concludes with a glossary of relevant terms and acknowledgments. This videotape asserts that there is no typical profile for children who are exposed to drugs during prenatal development and encourages educators to identify students' individual strengths and vulnerabilities and tailor interventions to meet their needs. (KB)