re: Questioning DARE: Baker police officer assigned to teach DARE skips school instead

quote:

---

Apparently all you need is Love in the city of Baker

---

quote:

---

But for over a decade research cast doubt on the program’s benefits. The Department of Justice funded the first national study of D.A.R.E. and the results, made public in 1994, showed only small short-term reductions in participants’ use of tobacco—but not alcohol or marijuana. A 2009 report by Justice referred to 30 subsequent evaluations that also found no significant long-term improvement in teen substance abuse. “Thirty years ago, everyone believed that if you just told students how harmful these substances and behaviors were—they'd stay away from them," says Frank Pegueros, president and CEO of D.A.R.E. America. "I've actually had officers tell me, ‘You mean I was doing it wrong for 15 years?’ Evidently, we were.”

---

quote:

---

Behavioral scientists started to suggest a different approach as early as 1998, based on research into successful behavior-change techniques. Instead of bombarding students with information in 45-minute lectures, they called for a hands-on program that would build communication and decision-making skills and let children rehearse these tactics via role play. Eventually D.A.R.E. started to search for a new curriculum, and the program’s scientific advisory board selected keepin’ it REAL from over 200 listings on a national registry of evidence-based programs maintained by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Now instructors speak only for about eight minutes during each lesson, partly so students can spend more time practicing tough decisions in activities with their friends. “If we teach good decision-making skills, it should transfer from one high-risk behavior to the next,” Pegueros says.

---

quote:

---

I think the larger impact is from kids having a positive relationship with a police officer. When my kids were in school they had the DARE program and a resource officer assigned to the school who spent a whole day each week at the school interacting with the kids.

---

quote:

---

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Council on Aging and former Port Allen Mayor Deedy Slaughter are amateurs compared to this Chief of Police.

Enjoy the shite show.

---