Indicated prevention programs focus on the school, family, and community domains when targeting individuals at highest risk for drug abuse. Typically, these are stand-alone programs that are offered within community agencies or school settings. Researchers believe that regardless of the particular focus of the prevention approach used in reaching at-risk youth (school, family, or community), there are some basic requirements for developing effective indicated prevention programs. For example, Goplerud (1991) has suggested that prevention practitioners:

• Design prevention activities that target the major risk factors of the individuals. Because each youth is different and has different risk factor vulnerabilities, no single prevention approach will be effective for all.
• Begin with the use of the prevention approach that will be the least intrusive but will be capable of ameliorating the problem.
• Establish consistent rules, responsibilities, policies, and practices for the prevention program.
• Work to develop trust and credibility for the prevention effort through positive actions.
• Assume that an individual’s problem with alcohol and/or drugs is not his or her only problem but merely a symptom of other stressors.
Because of an increasing dropout rate, schools are beginning to reach out to youth who are at risk in an effort to keep them in school and away from the kinds of problems associated with substance abuse. Therefore, school-based indicated prevention programs usually address several risk factors simultaneously, such as low self-esteem, academic failure, and depression. One such indicated prevention approach is the Student Assistance Program (SAP), similar to employee assistance programs, available in some schools. SAPs usually provide an assessment, crisis hotline, monitoring of a student’s performance (e.g., tardiness, absences, grades, discipline problems, demerits, and suspensions), family contacts, support groups or group counseling, and referral to outside agencies, if needed.
A number of useful research-based guidelines are available to help teachers and counselors increase protective factors among youth (Eggert et al. 1994a; Powell-Cope and Eggert 1994). These guidelines stress the importance of:

• Helping youth develop an increased sense of responsibility for their own success;
• Helping youth identify their skills and talents;
• Motivating youth to dedicate their lives to helping society rather than feeling their only purpose in life is to be consumers;
• Providing youth with realistic appraisals and feedback;
• Stressing multicultural competence;
• Encouraging youth to value education and skills training;
• Increasing cooperative solutions to problems rather than competitive or aggressive solutions; and
•  Increasing a sense among youth of responsibility for others and caring for others.