A New D.A.R.E. Curriculum Gets Mixed Reviews: Communications Activities for Improving and Evaluating the DARE School-Based Substance Abuse Prevention Curriculum. Program Results Report

Zili Sloboda, Sc.D., and colleagues at the University of Akron, Ohio, designed and evaluated "Take Charge of Your Life", a substance abuse prevention curriculum for 7th- and 9th-grade students delivered by D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) police officers. They designed "Take Charge of Your Life" to impact students' later (high school) intention to use alcohol, tobacco and marijuana by addressing social skills and social influences ("intervention mediators") in the earlier adolescent years. The evaluation of "Take Charge of Your Life" determined whether: (1) The curriculum affected drug use by students at 11th grade; (2) The curriculum was delivered with fidelity to the model; and (3) Intervention mediators--such as drug refusal skills, beliefs about drug use among peers and attitudes about substance use--affected students' later intent to use drugs and their actual drug use. Key findings include: (1) By 11th grade, significantly more students who participated in "Take Charge of Your Life" reported alcohol or cigarette use in the prior 30 days than did a control group of students who did not participate; (2) Students who took "Take Charge of Your Life" classes and who had used marijuana at baseline in 7th grade were significantly less likely to use marijuana by 11th grade, compared with students in the control group; (3) D.A.R.E. police officers delivered all of the lessons and, on average, 73 percent of the content of those lessons; and (4) The curriculum's positive impact on reducing marijuana use among 11th graders who had used marijuana at baseline was associated with their skill in refusing to use marijuana and their perceptions of prevalence of use among their peers. Appended are: (1) Background on D.A.R.E.; (2) The Curriculum Work Group; and (3) The Design Work Group. A bibliography is included.