DARE EDUCATOR TOUCHES LIVES

NORWALK -- Most people are aware of police officers' duties to serve and
protect. However, few are aware of another responsibility that officers
have -- to teach.

This is a duty that Officer Carleton Giles has been performing for almost
20 years. Giles was one of the original trainees for the Drug Abuse
Resistance Education program, which started in Norwalk in 1987.

DARE began in Los Angeles and was started in Norwalk under former Police
Chief Carl LaBianca, who wanted to strengthen the prevention component of
the Youth Bureau officers. Giles, a Norwalk police officer since 1980, has
spent the majority of his career working with Norwalk's youth. Giles
currently leads 14 DARE classes a week for fifth-graders at the city's
public schools as well as All Saints Catholic School. To him, the positive
contribution he makes to young people is one of the most worthwhile aspects
of his job. "I love the interaction with the kids," Giles said. "I hope
that I impact them in a positive way through my weekly meetings with them.
I've always maintained that in addition to drug education and life lessons,
one of the most important aspects of DARE is that I am able to foster a
positive relationship with them they hopefully will remember later in
life." On Tuesday morning, Giles met with fifth-graders at All Saints
Catholic School. Giles' good-natured spirit, sense of humor and genuine
enjoyment in his interaction with the students is something that has made a
difference in their lives, students said. His position as an officer
warrants respect, but it is more than Giles' badge that elicits that response.

"Officer Giles is funny and he makes us laugh, but we're learning at the
same time, which is cool," Morgan Delbene, of Laura Wrinn's fifth-grade
class said.

Giles was teaching Morgan and her classmates about the process of good
decision making ,which can apply not only to situations that involve drugs
or alcohol but to other life experiences such as peer pressure as well.

The DARE program uses a model made up of the same acronym, but in the
decision-making model DARE stands for Define (the problem), Assess (the
choices), Respond (to the problem) and Evaluate (your choice).

"Whatever decision you have in life, whether it's about drugs, alcohol or
whether or not to do the homework your teachers assign you, this is the
model you should use to make your decision," Giles explained to the students.

"You have to be able to defend your choices and believe that they were good
choices. You will have consequences to every decision you make, but you
will know what the bottom line is." On Tuesday, the students were using the
DARE decision-making model to respond to situations involving friends
asking them to do something they know their parents wouldn't allow them to
do, trying cigarettes for the first time.

"Let's look at the problem critically and assess your choices," Giles told
the students as they read each situation out loud. "Ask yourself, 'what is
my problem?' and 'what are my choices?'" Wrinn's fifth-graders said that
the DARE program has provided them with information about drugs and alcohol
that they weren't aware of before.

"I didn't know that people can get so sick from using some drugs and
cigarettes, and that they can even die from it," Stephen Heaslip said.

Fifth grade is the year chosen for the DARE program because it is the exit
year for elementary school and the gateway to middle school. Unlike
elementary students in public schools, students at All Saints will be in
the same building when they enter sixth grade. However, their challenges
are similar.

"The pressure to try drugs and alcohol is greater in middle school because
kids aren't as self-contained as they are in elementary school and they
have much more freedom," Giles said.

DARE aims to assist students in responding to the situations they might face.

"The decrease in supervision means that they need to be able to make these
decisions on their own without someone watching them all the time," Wrinn said.

According to Giles, the police department has had trouble with younger
children in the past few years.

"I'm not sure that the problems with the law among these young people is
directly linked to their experimenting with drugs or alcohol as much as it
is linked to a societal problem," Giles said. "But we are seeing more young
children getting in trouble." The students say that Giles' lessons will
definitely stay with them as they are faced with tough choices.

"I am going to remember everything he said and taught me if someone asks me
to smoke or try drugs," Delbene said.