BEYOND DARE DANE COUNTY COMMUNITIES SEARCH FOR NEW WAYS TO PREVENT TEEN
DRUG ABUSE

This is as subtle as it got a decade ago: television spots that
likened addiction to fried eggs.

It's been 13 years since Nancy Reagan pleaded with Generation X- ers
to "Just Say No," and 16 years since the nation's first crop of
fifth-graders DARE'd to be substance free.

Like the children it first targeted, drug education has come of age
with new research and new philosophies.

But has anything really changed? Recent surveys show that local
teenagers are increasingly trying marijuana and binge drinking at an
alarming rate.

Some say answers lie in a new buzzword for the millennium:
assets.

In a 1990 report and 1997 follow-up, researchers at Minneapolis'
Search Institute said kids with enough "positive assets" in their
lives - defined as everything from caring neighbors to high self-
esteem and community service opportunities - were more likely to make
healthy choices on a range of issues from alcohol use to overeating to
sex.

The concept revolutionized drug and alcohol education after a
generation of the spotlight being on factors that put young people at
risk.

The news reverberated throughout Wisconsin and Dane
County.

"What we're looking at is concentrating on positive strengths, rather
than looking at children as damaged goods," said Carol Klopp, alcohol,
tobacco and other drug abuse coordinator for Cooperative Educational
Service Agency-2 in Dane County.

The shift is so new that those buying into it admit there's little
proof that it works in practice. They can point only to evidence that
it has made an impact in clinical situations.

The breakthrough came as other research suggested DARE - Drug Abuse
Resistance Education - was costing a lot of money, with no definitive
proof that it was keeping teenagers from abusing drugs. Studies did
show it was having a nominal effect on teenage tobacco use.

Three Dane County school districts - Madison, Deerfield and Mt. Horeb
- - have dropped DARE So has Lodi in Columbia County.

Those who still back DARE no longer view it as an end-all.

"We still do DARE We like DARE But DARE can't stand alone. You need to
do more," said Kim Hegstrom, alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse
coordinator for the Belleville School District. "I think the picture
is bigger than that."

"I think the reason that DARE fails at a lot of schools is that they
just do DARE," agreed Dennis Steed, student assistance program
coordinator for the Stoughton Area School District.

As they weigh whether to keep DARE, school districts are wading
through an explosion of new "asset-based" curriculums that focus on
strengthening kids and teaching them to make lifelong healthy choices.
The programs also stress resiliency - the notion that even kids who
don't have much going for them are capable of making it.

Gone are the days where drug education meant showing middle schoolers
an array of colored pills laid out in a glass case like a bug
collection. Today the focus is on raising consciousness about wise
choices for the long term.

"You are never going to have a program that is going to stop kids from

experimenting," said Lynn Reining, alcohol and drug coordinator for
the Middleton-Cross Plains School District. "What you hope is that if
they do experiment, they are not going to drive drunk."

"We don't talk about alcohol being a drug. We talk about how alcohol
can cause health-related problems and impairment problems," said Linda
Sanders, a guidance counselor at Lodi Middle School.

"With young kids, we talk about how it can make you stumble and fall.
We talk in high school about how it can affect relationships with people."

Eighth-graders in Belleville discuss the economics of
tobacco.

Madison fifth-graders get an eye-opening look at what it would mean to
live on minimum wage if parenthood or alcohol or drug abuse
short-circuited their education. The lessons are part of C.O.P.S., or
Classes on Personal Safety, which debuted last fall as a replacement
for DARE.

"We start going through food and utilities, and kids are coming up
with about 33 cents per day to have fun with," said Madison Safety
Education Officer Maryanne Thurber. "All of a sudden I hear kids say,
`I'm not going to get pregnant. I'm staying in high school.' "

Madison high schoolers who see that their parents turned out fine
after using marijuana in the 1960s are taught that a joint today is 14
times more potent and addictive than 30 years ago, said Joan Lerman,
alcohol and other drug program support person for the Madison
Metropolitan School District.

Home help: At the core of the Search Institute's assets concept is the
idea that community and parent involvement is critical to keeping
children free of alcohol and drug problems later in life.

"We can support what the parents are trying to do and they can support
what we are trying to do. That's where it starts," said Julie Taylor,
Wisconsin Heights School District alcohol and drug abuse
coordinator.

Parents in Mt. Horeb, Madison, Evansville and Deerfield have been
offered an in-depth evening course called "Talking with Your Kids
About Alcohol," developed by the Kentucky-based Prevention Research
Institute.

Pat Werk, of Deerfield, whose children are 11, 13 and 16, said the
class "made me comfortable. I felt more knowledgeable. I felt I had
some tools to work with. I know what points I need to make."

While short-term issues such as a family's moral expectations that a
teenager will not drink alcohol fit into the discussion, the ultimate
intent is to help young people prepare for adulthood.

"It is to help parents reduce their children's risk of ever developing
an alcohol problem any time in life," said Katie Albrecht, alcohol and
other drug abuse coordinator for the Deerfield School District.

Participants are forced to examine the example they
set.

"It challenges adults to look at what they consider to be responsible
drinking," parent Larry Sexe said.

"The minute you start talking about drinking in this state, you press
all kinds of buttons," said drug educator Klopp. "The reality is
they're watching everything you do. No matter what I say, if I don't
back it up with my deeds, I might as well quit saying it."

Marshall and Madison offer a course called "Active Parenting," which
deals with issues from alcohol to sexuality.

Evansville, Mt. Horeb and Lodi offer a related classroom course called
"Talking with Your Students About Alcohol." It will be offered in
Middleton next year.

In an effort to arm parents with needed information, school districts
throughout Dane County have set up resource rooms offering literature
for check-out, Internet access and a chance for parents to network.

Verona and McFarland have Partners in Prevention. It offers asset
training for parents and tries to raise awareness of drug and alcohol
use among area teens.

The Wisconsin Heights School District has brought in detectives and
University Hospital officials to share their medical and law
enforcement expertise with parents and staff members.

Marshall recently offered an evening seminar with Michael McGowan, a
Pewaukee-based consultant who specializes in alcohol, drug and family

issues.

Madison offers F.A.S.T. - Families and Schools Together, an evening
program that brings entire families together one night a week for
eight to 10 weeks. The sessions include dinner, family communication
games and straight talk about drug and alcohol use.

Similarly, Middleton offers "Family Talk," an in-depth discussion of
alcohol and drugs for parents of adolescents.

And Mt. Horeb has "Joining Forces for Families," which brings together
a social worker, public health nurse, police officers and others to
talk about how local families can be strengthened.

In the long run, however, will these new approaches make a
difference?

Checking results: No one knows for sure, admitted Elise Frattura
Kampshroer, director of student services for the Verona Area School
District.

"I could list 10 things under every grade level that we do. We do a
lot. Our question is, is it helpful?" Frattura Kampshroer said. "Is it
meeting the needs of our kids?"

Verona is hoping to amass some information through a survey this
spring of seventh-to 12th-graders.

"Over the past five or six years, we've been putting services into
place. It was time to stop the merry-go-round to see if we had built
it right," Frattura Kampshroer said.

But Ron Biendseil, youth services coordinator for the Dane County
Youth Commission, said most school districts don't have the money to
independently research whether their programs are working. They're
counting on the research done ahead of time by the curriculum developers.

"What schools and community groups are trying to do is latch on to
those kinds of programs that have had some kind of evaluation, usually
in another community or state. That's about the best we can do,"
Biendseil said.

With its asset model, the Search Institute has "been able to document
at least correlations" between assets and healthy choices, Biendseil
said. "They are saying we seem to have found some things that make
sense."

"We're really in the infancy in so much of this area in terms of what
works. Each year we learn a little more. It takes time and resources
and money and trial and error and people coming together to share
anecdotes to see if there is some consensus that this is working,"
Biendseil said.

A federally funded project that brought Dane County school districts
together for two years between 1994 and 1996 was a huge step in
understanding what works, CESA2's Klopp said.

"When I started working here, there was a large amount of frustration
among our coordinators over the issue of `Is what we're doing right?
We don't know,' " Klopp said.

Backed by a $465,000 federal grant, school district and CESA2
officials spent a year sifting through 40 years of published material
on prevention research.

The effort, dubbed Project Four Square, picked apart scores of canned
curriculums, including DARE.

"We found that there were things that schools were doing that didn't
work. As a matter of fact, some stuff is detrimental," Klopp said.

The group came away with an asset-based model for alcohol and drug
education that has become the basis for much of what's now taught in
area schools. A similar framework was recently developed by the state
Department of Public Instruction.

Klopp said Project Four Square resulted in new confidence among school
district alcohol and drug coordinators.

"We're in this period of change in which districts are asking some
very hard questions. They're no longer willing to accept surface
answers," Klopp said. "We now have the ability to say, `What research
have you done on this?' We're no longer saying, `That looks pretty
good to us.' "

A new Dane County youth survey to be published next year may offer the
first benchmark on whether the project was on the right track.

The survey is done every five years by a host of area agencies
including the Dane County Youth Commission, UW-Extension, area school
districts, CESA2 and Partners in Prevention.

Other answers may be slower in coming.

At universities around the nation, researchers are just beginning to
delve into the effectiveness of some of the new curriculums.

DARE had been around for nearly 15 years before researchers began to
debunk it, Stoughton's Steed pointed out.

"It took 25 years for smoking to come to the awareness it has today,"
Steed said.

Research at the national level has begun to show that community policy
changes - such as raising alcohol taxes, raising drinking ages and
adopting zero tolerance laws - may have as Page 4A much impact on
kids' choices as school programs, said Paul Moberg, director of the
Center for Health Policy and Program Evaluation at the University of
Wisconsin Medical School.

There is also evidence that hands-on programs and those that allow
students to take a leadership role may have more impact than lectures,
said Cheryl Perry, an epidemiology professor at the University of
Minnesota. Perry was involved in a lengthy trial that began in 1991,
and trained middle schoolers to put on alcohol-free community fun nights.

Initial results showed a significant reduction in alcohol use among
eighth-graders.

"I think what happened is we started to re-create their social
environment so that they didn't think the only way to have fun was to
drink," Perry said.

Moberg is involved in a three-year research project that is looking at
what happens when initial F.A.S.T. money dries up and critical pieces
of the program, such as community dinners, are cut out.

Meanwhile, school districts are becoming familiar enough with the
programs to discuss their strengths and weaknesses.

Kay Nightingale, safe and drug free school coordinator for the Beloit
School District and a certified trainer for the Prevention Research
Institute who has taught guidance counselors all over the state to
use its programs, said "Talking with Your Kids About Alcohol" tops
her list of nationally known programs.

"It's the best stuff I've ever seen by far," she said.

But while Deerfield's Albrecht praised "Talking with Your Kids About
Alcohol," the related student component got mixed reviews.

"Kids can get bored with it. It's very lecture oriented with slides,"
Albrecht said. "They need to do some revision on how the program is
delivered, to make it more palatable."

Mt. Horeb apathy: But at least Deerfield has had enough interest to
offer the course for parents.

Mt. Horeb alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse coordinator Carol
Clavey said her district has tried to offer "Talking with Your Kids
About Alcohol" for years.

The last time it had enough parental interest to hold a class was in
1996.

"It's been frustrating," Clavey said. "Parents aren't seeing it as a
priority."

"I have talked to parents and said, `Why don't you want to take it?'
They say, `I have already talked to my kids.' `What did you tell
them?' `Not to do it.' "

Sometimes there are surprises, however.

Despite a small turnout for "Talking with Your Kids About Alcohol," a
separate panel discussion on teenage drug use drew 50 Deerfield
parents last year, Albrecht said.

"Historically - and I'm sure this is true in many communities -
there's a lot of denial that we have a problem," Albrecht said. "This
was a sign of success."

There are many signs, in fact, that area communities are taking their
role seriously - such as an increasing recognition that summer
festivals need not revolve around beer tents and a recent push to
establish youth centers.

"I would say that communities are taking off the blinders," Steed
said.

Stoughton has offered some of the county's most innovative programs,
including an exchange program with inmates from the Rock County Jail,
in which students see first hand the impacts of unwise choices.

Stoughton has a peer jury and was one of the county's first
communities to have a youth center.

It also has S.A.D.D. - which begins in the middle school as Students
Against Dangerous Decisions and evolves into Students Against Drunk
Driving in high school.

Biendseil calls Stoughton "our poster child."

But even that community has seen bumps in the road.

An award-winning effort to have liquor stores and taverns sign a
pledge to not sell alcohol to minors has seen "limited follow-up,"
Steed admitted.

It's just one example of the work that remains to be
done.

Despite the recent publicity about local youth centers, only one-
quarter of middle school students in Dane County currently have access
to such places, Biendseil pointed out.

And no one believes that there's a silver bullet out
there.

"We recognize that this is a piece of work that will never be done,"
Thurber said.

INHALING AND IMBIBING

Recent surveys show marked increases in teenage marijuana
use.

In 1995, a survey of 6,800 Dane County seventh-to 12th-graders showed
that 26 percent had used marijuana, up from 20 percent in 1990.

That mirrored a statewide rise in teenage marijuana use between 1993
and 1997 from 23 percent to 36 percent. Nationwide, the number of high
school seniors having used marijuana rose from 41 percent to 50
percent between 1990 and 1997.

Additionally, in a recent study, the State Medical Society of
Wisconsin said adults in Wisconsin ranked first in the nation in binge
drinking - commonly defined as five or more drinks in a row for men
and four for women.

The 1995 Dane County Youth Survey showed that 27 percent of local
teenagers had binged in the past month. Similarly, the 1997 statewide
survey showed that 31 percent of Wisconsin teenagers had binged in the
past 30 days, and 17 percent had taken their first drink at age 10 or
younger.

The state survey did show small to moderate decreases in teenage use
of tobacco, crack cocaine and alcohol since 1990.

"While we have made a lot of strides, we have seen some backsliding
there," said Steve Fernan, prevention education consultant with the
state Department of Public Instruction.