Dare Program

DARE is an acronym for the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program and was created in 1983 by Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates. DARE is the most widely used drug use prevention program in the United States, being delivered to 26 million school children in nearly 75% of the nation's school districts, and to 10,000 million in more than 54 countries around the world.

DARE's primary mission is to provide children and adolescents with the information and skills they need to live drug-and-violence-free lives by equipping children and youths with the tools that will enable them to avoid negative influences and, instead, allow them to focus on their strengths and potential. Additionally, the program seeks to establish positive relationships between students and law enforcement, teachers, parents, and other community leaders.

DARE America, the parent organization for the DARE programs, is located in Los Angeles, California. This national nonprofit organization describes its role as serving as a resource to communities, and helping to establish and improve local DARE programs. DARE America also provides police officer training, supports the development and evaluation of the DARE curricula, provides student educational materials, monitors instruction standards and program results, and creates national awareness for DARE.

One of the unique aspects of the DARE curricula is that the programs are designed to be taught by specially trained police officers who then lead a series of classroom lessons that teach children and adolescents from kindergarten through 12th grade. Officers are used to implement the program under the assumption that a curriculum on substance abuse prevention is more effective when the instructors represent legitimate authority figures within the community.

Prior to implementing the elementary and middle/ junior high school programs, officers undergo 80 hours of special training in areas such as child development, classroom management, teaching techniques, and communication skills, which also certifies them as School Resource Officers. In addition, 40 hours of training are provided to DARE instructors to prepare them to teach the high school curriculum.

DARE America views the police officer's role in the classroom as an important program component because the program allows young people to begin to relate to officers as people, to see officers in a helping role, not just an enforcement role, opens lines of communication between law enforcement and youths, as well as between the school, police, and parents to deal with other issues. The officer is also viewed as a conduit to provide information beyond drug-related topics.

Programs are offered for kindergarten through second grades (4 sessions) and third through fourth grades (5 sessions), but most students who participate in the elementary school DARE curriculum are fifth and sixth graders. The DARE curriculum, newly revised in 2003, is intended for fifth- and sixth-grade students and consists of 9 lessons with an optional 10th class culmination event. In addition to the elementary curriculum, there is a 10-lesson program designed for middle/junior high school students, also [Page 150]newly revised in 2003, and a 9-session high school curriculum.

The K–12 DARE curricula focus on the following content areas:

• “No use” messages for alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco
• Immediate consequences of use
• Normative beliefs (perceptions about how many people use a specific substance)
• Problem solving and conflict management
• Self-management skills
• Voluntary commitment (to remain substance- and violence-free)
• Character education
• Interactive participatory learning
• Resistance skills
• Alternatives to using substances or participating in violence
• Self-esteem
• Role modeling

There are also two other DARE educational components: parent training and an after-school program called DARE + PLUS (Play and Learn Under Supervision). The parent training program has been introduced in communities throughout the United States. This six-session program is designed to help parents talk with their children and complement inschool DARE programs for students in grades K–12. DARE+PLUS is an on-campus program offering middle school students educational after-school activities. The program combines community volunteers with DARE officers and school staff for the benefits of students on campus immediately after school.

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