Author: Wendy

Not only is D.A.R.E. still around, it’s growing with education programs in every state in America and many other countries. Since 2018, more than 500 communities throughout the United States launched a new D.A.R.E. program. Elementary, middle, and high school curricula, as well as critical enhancement lessons on subjects including opioid abuse prevention, vaping, teen suicide, and internet/social media safety are now being taught in these communities by D.A.R.E. Instructors who attended one of the 40 two-week, intensive D.A.R.E. training courses conducted annually.

Con 4: D.A.R.E. causes kids to ignore legitimate information about the relative harms of drugs.

In its September 10, 2014 issue, Scientific American published an article entitled, The New D.A.R.E. Program – this one works. The article notes that Richard Clayton, Ph.D., a retired prevention researcher formerly of the University of Kentucky, was also once an outspoken critic of D.A.R.E., has since been invited to join D.A.R.E.’s board of directors and chair its Scientific Advisory Committee. Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. Brené has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. He paid the price.Lucian Banks, the Duke of Grovemont, was still grieving his mother’s death when a simple wedding invitation turned his life upside down. Never did he imagine that his friend’s younger sister would draw him into a compromising situation, one that led to a hasty marriage.

1. They mean is research available showing that the curriculum is effective in reducing outcomes such as drug use, bullying and other problem behaviors by improving the decision-making and other skills of those who were exposed to the lessons compared to those who were not?
2. He paid the price.Lucian Banks, the Duke of Grovemont, was still grieving his mother’s death when a simple wedding invitation turned his life upside down.
3. With each passing year, D.A.R.E.’s success was seen in classrooms and homes leading to rapid growth and expansion.
4. In 2001, the Surgeon General of the United States, David Satcher, placed the D.A.R.E. program in the category of “Ineffective Primary Prevention Programs”.26 The U.S. General Accounting Office concluded in 2003 that the program was sometimes counterproductive in some populations, with those who graduated from D.A.R.E. later having higher than average rates of drug use (a boomerang effect).
5. D.A.R.E. was founded in 1983 and has proven so successful that it has been implemented in thousands of schools throughout the United States and many other countries.

Con 7: D.A.R.E. lures parents into a false sense of security about their kids’ drug use.

The Commission’s report identifies keepin’ it REAL as one such intervention programs. Facing unparalleled drug abuse among our youth in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, visionary Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates and the Los Angeles Unified School District in 1983 launched an unprecedented and innovative substance abuse prevention education program – Drug Abuse Resistance Education. The primary goal of most school-based, curriculum-driven prevention programming is to encourage decisions to never use drugs, or at least facilitate a significant delay in the onset of use of drugs. The focus of social-emotional learning principles in the D.A.R.E./keepin’ it REAL curricula could be critical elements in decisions to not continue using drugs, to encourage decreasing and/or completely stopping the use of drugs. Its unparalleled delivery system utilizing law enforcement officers as instructors and the fact that it was the first program of its kind anywhere in the world have individually and collectively played a critical role in D.A.R.E.’s growth and expansion.

Most recently, UNC Greensboro’s three year, multi-longitudinal evaluation completed in 2021 concluded “D.A.R.E.’s keepin’ it REAL Elementary School Curriculum is Evidence-based, Successful and Effective.” And, it is the only evaluation ever conducted reviewing prevention education curricula taught by law enforcement officers, rather than teachers. D.A.R.E. has partnered with prestigious educational institutions to adapt curricula proven to be effective. A comprehensive study 12 Steps of AA What Are the Principles of AA completed in 2021 by UNC Greensboro – the only one ever conducted reviewing a prevention education curricula taught by law enforcement officers rather than teachers – concluded D.A.R.E. keepin’ it REAL Elementary School Curriculum is Evidence-based, Successful and Effective.

D.A.R.E. Program Returns to Lenoir County Schools

Brené’s research challenges the traditional view that vulnerability is a weakness, presenting it instead as an essential component of courage.”There is no courage without vulnerability.” D.A.R.E. provides children with an opportunity to learn and practice good decision-making skills to lead safe and healthy lives. Through KARE, D.A.R.E. also gives to children’s hospitals and other children’s charities and shelters.

Drug Abuse Resistance Education

Further, these programs offer neither a nationwide training system for instructors nor a rigorous process to ensure that training centers are accredited. The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program is the most comprehensive drug prevention curricula in the world taught in thousands of schools throughout America’s 50 states and its territories, as well as in 50+ other countries reaching more than 1.5 million students annually. D.A.R.E. is a police officer-led series of classroom lessons that teaches children from kindergarten through 12th grade how to resist peer pressure and live productive drug and violence-free lives. D.A.R.E. America recognizes that its comprehensive pre K-12 curricula are only one, although a potentially significant part of an overall and comprehensive approach to drug use and abuse. It is important to note that all law enforcement agencies are officially committed to the mission of reducing the supply of drugs (i.e., supply reduction) as well as reducing the demand (demand reduction) for drugs via prevention.

From a prevention perspective, the pre K-12, D.A.R.E. keepin’ it REAL curricula are targeted at all students (i.e. “universal” prevention) rather than being targeted at students with specific risk factors (“selected” prevention) or at students who are already using drugs (“indicated” prevention). The California Healthy Kids Resource Center, a division of the California Departments of Health and Education, professional Research & Evaluation staff ensure optimal services for families and children by providing internal and external stakeholders with useful tools and information that can be used for program evaluation, forecasting and strategic planning, contract compliance, and advocacy. The Center lists keepin’ it REAL as “research validated”…its equivalent of an evidence-based ranking. A series of scientific studies in the 1990s and 2000s cast doubt on the effectiveness of D.A.R.E., with some studies concluding the program was harmful or counterproductive.