D.A.R.E. REACHES OUT TO OLDER STUDENTS

The widely-used D.A.R.E. program has local elementary school students, but
officials are interested in increasing drug-education programs to reach
older audiences.

D.A.R.E., a program offered locally to fifth-grade students, has been
successful in thwarting drug use among elementary school children, Officer
Leo Rowe says.

"I see parents with their children that stop me on the street and say
there's my D.A.R.E. officer; and the parents come up and say, 'I want to
thank you,' " Rowe said. "Children go home and share what they learned with
their parents."

D.A.R.E. is the most frequently used youth drug-abuse prevention program in
the United States, starting with elementary school. Several evaluations
have shown that the program has made some progress in keeping youngsters
from starting to smoke cigarettes.

But a new study from the University of Minnesota shows that the D.A.R.E.
program alone has little effect on middle school students. Instead,
researchers said, a new program -- D.A.R.E. Plus -- is more effective at
reaching an older audience.

D.A.R.E. Plus adds a classroom-based, peer-led program that includes
parents. This four-session, once-a-week program is led by specially trained
teachers and focuses on skills and influences from peers, social groups,
media and role models.

"I'd love to do a program such as that," Rowe said. He is working with
police to start a week-long summer session that would followup the D.A.R.E.
program currently offered.

University of Minnesota researcher Cheryl Perry said the study's outcomes
"underscore the effectiveness of broadening our prevention programs to
develop healthy communities by including parents, peers and other community
members."

Among boys, those in D.A.R.E. Plus were significantly less likely than
those in D.A.R.E.-only programs to show increases in tobacco use and
violent behavior, and slightly less likely to increase their smoking if
they had already started.

Girls in D.A.R.E. Plus schools were less likely to report increases in ever
having been drunk compared to girls in the D.A.R.E.-only schools.
Otherwise, there was no difference between girls in the various programs.

"Because boys were at greater risk at the start, these results suggest that
the intervention was reaching an audience that was at high risk and that
these efforts were warranted," the researchers said. But they noted that
the differences in outcomes by sex need more study, since there was a clear
effect of the interventions among girls.

Scripps Howard News Service contributed to this report. Todd DeFeo covers
criminal justice