The new D.A.R.E. curriculum employs the latest in prevention science and teaching techniques. D.A.R.E. is reinventing itself as part of a major national research study that promises to help teachers and administrators cope with ever-evolving federal prevention program requirements and the issues of school violence, budget cuts, and terrorism.
D.A.R.E. teaches children how to recognize and resist the direct and subtle pressures that influence them to experiment with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other controlled substances. Statistics show that 70 to 90% of all crime is drug related. It is clear that the important messages embedded in the D.A.R.E. program need to be introduced to our students before it is too late.
Each year DoDDS-Pacific/DDESS-Guam provides D.A.R.E. officer training for selected security forces candidates from base installations throughout the Pacific Area ( Japan, Okinawa, South Korea and Guam). The D.A.R.E. instructor trainers are a selected cadre of experienced trainers who work for police departments in the United States. D.A.R.E. Officer candidates must endure a rigorous two week training in order to become certified D.A.R.E. Instructors. After becoming certified, the D.A.R.E. officers teach the D.A.R.E. curriculum in a classroom setting to elementary and middle school students.
During SY 2006-07, 23 new D.A.R.E. officers were trained as "coaches" to support kids who are using research-based refusal strategies in high-stakes peer-pressure environments. Today, D.A.R.E. students are getting to see for themselves, via brain imagery, tangible proof of how substances diminish mental activity, emotions, coordination and movement.
