D.A.R.E.
( Drug Abuse Resistance Education) is a collaborative effort by DARE certified law enforcement officers, educators, students,
parents, and community to offer an educational program in the classroom to prevent or reduce drug abuse and violence among
children and youth. The emphasis of the Officer's Guide to D.A.R.E. to Resist Drugs and Violence, Student Workbook, Grades
5-6 , is to help students recognize and resist the many direct and subtle pressures that influence them to experiment
with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, inhalants, or other drugs or to engage in violence.
The DARE program offers preventive
strategies to enhance those protective factors-especially bonding to the family, school, and community-which appear to foster
the development of resiliency in young people who may be at risk for substance abuse or other problem behaviors. Researchers
have identified certain protective and social bonding factors in the family, school, and community which may foster resiliency
in young people, in other words, the capacity of young people for healthy, independent growth in spite of adverse conditions.
These strategies focus on the development of social competence, communication skills, self-esteem, empathy, decision making,
conflict resolution, sense of purpose and indepence, and positive alternative activities to drug abuse and other destructive
behaviors.
The program content for DARE is organized into seventeen 45 to 60 minute lessons to be taught by a law enforcement
officer with suggested extended activities to be integrated into other instruction by the classroom teacher. Student participation
in the DARE program may be incorporated as an integral part of the school's curricular offering in health, science, social
studies, language arts, or other subjects as appropriate. The classroom teacher should maintain a supportive role in classroom
management while the officer is teaching and should incorporate DARE program participation by students as an integral part
of the student's final evaluation.
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