VALLEY ADDS FOUR DAREING COPS

More Cowichan Valley kids will be getting training from police in how to
avoid drugs and violence as four more local Mounties become DARE instructors.

The four Valley cops - North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP Constables Jennifer
Prunty, Calvin Beers and Lillian Gondo and Lake Cowichan RCMP Cpl. Ray
Carfantan - are among 30 from across B.C. currently taking training to
teach DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education.)

Increasing the number of local kids who take the DARE course is one of the
North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP's goals, Prunty said.

"It's an important aspect of crime prevention and reaching out to youth,"
she said during a break from training at the Traveller's Inn in Cowichan
Bay. "It builds a relationship. If I start talking to these kids in Grade
5, in Grade 8 they're still going to know me."

It's that connection between DARE officers and the kids they teach that
makes the program work, says RCMP Cpl. Sharon Cooke, who is training the
officers to teach DARE.

"The relationship kids have with a DARE officer is very unique. You become
'their' DARE officer. They take possession of you."

The DARE course is offered to kids in Grade 5 and 6, before they hit the
worst ages for pressure to try drugs. That's also an age where kids tend to
respect and admire the police, and are willing to listen to them.

"If we tell them how valuable they are, they're going to listen," Prunty
said. "It reinforces our message."

The course - consisting of 17 sessions usually done once per week - is more
than simply telling kids not to do drugs, Cooke said.

"This a life skills program. We're not just saying to them, 'Just say no.'
We're offering them decision-making skills."

To become DARE instructors, police officers have to apply through an essay
and interview process, and then go through the intensive two-week training
currently underway in Cowichan Bay.

The process is taken very seriously, Cooke said, and not everyone passes
the course.

"We have to be confident they're going to be a competent DARE officer," she
said. "If they go in and don't give it everything they have, the kids don't
benefit." Prunty said she's long been interested in being a DARE officer
and is looking forward to getting to teach the course in schools.

"I have an interest in teaching kids and I think that age is when you're
going to have a big impact," she said. "I'm looking forward to all the
different little personalities. It's going to be a rewarding aspect of my
job to steer them toward something positive."