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Too Good For Drugs
Fourth and fifth grade students are "Too Good For Drugs."
“Too Good For Drugs” is a ten lesson program that combines the “Too Good For Drugs” curriculum with other activities to offer a comprehensive education program that focuses on building the skills students need to resist peer pressure and make healthy choices. It is offered in a six-week after school format at participating schools, as a day-camp program in the summer, or in other formats as requested.
The program is sponsored by the Crawford Abuse Resistance Effort and Prairie du Chien Memorial Hospital, and funded through a Drug Free Community Support Program grant.
The lessons focus on goal setting, taking responsibility for your own behavior, and decision-making. “We help students identify what goals they want to work towards now and in the future, and stress that the steps to accomplishing those goals are in their hands,” said Mary Sprosty, C.A.R.E. Prevention Specialist for Prairie du Chien Memorial Hospital.
C.A.R.E. staff and members of C.A.R.E.’s Youth Leadership Committee (YLC) teach the program. “Each session is run by a Prevention Specialist and several high school students for 12-15 students. This ratio of teachers to students will allow us to really run a quality program,” Sprosty said.
Once students identify their goals, they will identify behaviors that will help them reach those goals (save money, study, go to college) and learn about behaviors that will prevent them from reaching their goals (using alcohol and tobacco).
“It is not enough to simply talk about the dangers of alcohol and tobacco, or other drugs. We need to connect those behaviors with something important in each student’s life and show how every decision they make, good or bad, will affect their future,” Sprosty said.
“Students at this age don’t think about getting cancer 20 years from now. That is not important to them yet. But there are immediate goals that are important to them – succeeding in sports, making friends, developing a good reputation, and earning the respect of parents and teachers. The high school mentors will help students see how the decisions they make today help them or hurt them in attaining their goals.”
“We really focus on changing ‘normative beliefs,’ or the idea that ‘everyone else is doing it’ when we approach substance abuse prevention,” said Prevention Specialist Stacie Anderson. “We want students to know that NOT everyone is doing it, their friends don’t approve (of drug use), and their parents don’t approve,” Anderson added.
“We have worked with high school and middle school youth for 15 years and are very excited to be expanding C.A.R.E. youth programming into the elementary school level,” said Rick Peterson, Program Director. “Parents, professionals, and community members have identified the age in which youth start using alcohol and tobacco as a big concern.”
A local survey administered in November 2003 showed that first-time alcohol use was at its highest at 13 years old; tobacco use at 12 years old. “Coalition members were very alarmed that experimentation began this early, and wanted more educational programs offered for 10-11 year old students,” Peterson said.
The “Too Good for Drugs Program” curriculum was selected because it has been identified as a CSAP Model Program. “There are a lot of different criteria that has to be met to become a model program, but basically it means that it has been researched over a long-period of time and has proven to reduce drug use among its target population,” Peterson said.
According to the Mendez Foundation, the developer of the program, students who completed “Too Good For Drugs” were 33% less likely to smoke cigarettes and 38% less likely to use alcohol when surveyed and compared to students who did not complete the program.
For more information on the program, or to view the curriculum, contact Sprosty at the C.A.R.E. office at 357-2084 or carecncl@mhtc.net
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