Life Enrichment Education (LEE) a Crucial Gizmo in Refraining Street Children from Substance Use

Children in general are regarded as being in need of protection from abuse, but the nature of the lives of street children exposes them to an almost unimaginable potential for exploitation. They are vulnerable to substance use that in turn threatens their physical, social, spiritual and mental well being. A survey has found that young homeless people are four to five times more likely to get addicted to substances than those in the general population. Against this backdrop, the investigator reached the fact that the endurance of these children though depends upon various factors, out of which the most important one is developing skills to abstain themselves from using psycho-active substances. The objective of the study was to enhance the selected street boy's resilient factors and developing skills to abstain themselves from substances through Life Enrichment Education. All the 66 boys within the age frontier of 13-17 years residing in the selected rehabilitation home was chosen for the study. A self structured questionnaire was framed to acquire the desired data on understanding why, how and where of substance use and on assessing their views on using the same. The second part of the schedule is readministered to the beneficiaries to evaluate the efficacy of LEE. The method of behaviour acquisition through LEE, followed in this research, include both participatory and non-participatory approaches such as role play, situation analysis, small group tasks, debates, content analysis, brainstorming, relaxation and trust building exercises and games. To conclude, uut of 58 street boys with one or more habits, there was a significant upheaval in the number of street children (50) after LEE, which made up their mind to refrain from the habits to which they were addicted as against boys' prior education. Hence more strengthened programme on LEE with special reference to abstaining from substance use had to be carried out for these children.