• Beginning Alcohol and Addiction Basic Education Studies (BABES) 
• Life Skills Program 
• Steps to Respect (Bullying)
• Too Good for Drugs
• Too Good For Violence
• Towards No Tobacco Use
• Project ALERT (Drug & Alcohol)

Grade 1- 8 lessons
A nationally recognized curriculum that uses animal puppets combined with storytelling to give practical information on the topic of substance abuse prevention and education.  The B.A.B.E.S. curriculum includes age-appropriate content that motivates children to interact with the characters and the puppets to comprehend the lesson. 

Puppets

Button and Bow Mc Kitty:  Two kittens, a brother and a sister, from a two parent family.  Many of the stories center around these two characters.

Myth Mary: A friend to the kittens, Myth Mary is a squirrel who often shares myths or mis-informed information to her friends.

Early Bird: This bird and his trade-mark "honk honk" warns the children that something has been shared that is not quite right and to be sure and listen to the correct information that is about to be presented.

Donovan Dignity:  A wise owl who shares correct information with the friends, usually in the form of a 1-2-3 step lesson.  When he speaks, the children are about to hear better ways to cope.

Recovering Reggie:  Reggie is a dog who is a recovering, cross-addicted alcoholic, and tries to erase the stigma attached to alcoholism.  He shares the lesson giving role with Donovan.

Rhonda Rabbit:  A rabbit who shares the experiences of living in a chemically dependent home.  She represents a child who is sexually and physically abused.  She is also a child of neglect, and she helps the children to understand they are not alone.  Rhonda needs to reach out to someone she trusts for help.

Lessons Content:

1. Self-Image and Feelings (I Am Looking and Feeling Fine!)

2. Decision Making and Peer Pressure (She Made Me Do It Didn't She?)

3. Coping Skills (Accepting the Things I Cannot Change and Changing the Things I Can.)

4. Alcohol and Other Drug Information (Lets Play Party!)

5. Getting Help (Retreat Is Not Defeat and Failure Is Not Final!)

8. Review and Certification (Wrapping Up)

Steps to Respect

Level 1

Grades 3 & 4-Eight lessons

In Steps to Respect lessons, student study and discuss core ethical values such as respect for self and others, caring, responsibility, compassion, trustworthiness, and self-discipline.  The whole-school program is designed to decrease bullying at school and to foster a climate in which adults and students work together to develop a school culture based on care and respect.

The Steps to Respect program integrates the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects to character education.  Skill and literature lessons help students understand the concepts of friendship and respect.  Lessons also teach empathy for bullying targets and specific, caring ways children can respond when they witness bullying.  During lessons, teachers model and children practice behaviors that help build friendship and prevent bullying behaviors in school.  Students learn to consider other’s feeling—in particular, how it feels to be included in and excluded from activities.  They also learn that their actions can be a powerful force in creating a school climate that is respectful and caring to others.  All of these skills combined help students understand, care about, act on core ethical values.

Research Findings after only 12 weeks of implementation

There were 25% fewer bullying incidents on playground compared to control group

Children who were bystanders to bullying were less encouraging of the behavior

Eight lessons

1: Friendship Begins with Respect

2: Making Conversations and Joining Groups

3: What is Bullying?

4: Being Assertive and Refusing Bullying

5: Reporting Bullying

6: What is a Bystander?

7: Bystanders Can Be Part of the Solution

Level 2

Grades 4 & 5- Eight lessons

Lessons

1: Friendship Calls for Respect

2: Making Friends and Joining Groups

3: Recognizing Bullying

4: Put-Downs Hurt

5: Refusing Bullying

6: Controlling Rumors

7: Reporting Bullying

Level 3

Grades 5 & 6 - Eight lessons

Lessons

1: Friendship

2: Conflict and Conflict Resolution

3: Recognizing Conflict, Recognizing Bullying

4: Bodies and Bullying

5: Refusing and Reporting Bullying

6: Bystanders Can Help

7: Taking Responsibility

8: Setting Goals for a Safe School Community

Too Good For Drugs

Too Good For Drugs™ (K–8) is a school-based prevention program designed to reduce risk factors and enhance protective factors related to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs (ATOD) use among students. Too Good For Drugs™ (K-8) has a separate, developmentally-appropriate curriculum for each grade level..

Too Good for Drugs™ (K-8) builds five essential life skills:

• goal setting
• decision making
• bonding with pro-social others
• identifying and managing emotions
• communicating effectively

(a) Students participating in the TGFD program had statistically significant higher

scores or higher levels of emotional competency skills in comparison to students in the control group. A sample of item content that represents skills in this category includes: 1) I know many different words to describe what I feel inside, 2) I am responsible for choosing to live a safe and healthy life, and 3) I can do almost anything I put my mind to.

(b) Students participating in the TGFD program had statistically significant higher

scores or higher levels of social and resistance skills in comparison to students in the control group. A sample of item content that represents skills in this category includes: 1) If someone tried to hand me a can of beer, I would just walk away, 2) If a group of kids called me over to try some marijuana, I would just ignore them, and 3) I know many peer refusal strategies to help me avoid pressure to smoke, drink or use marijuana.

(c) Students participating in the TGFD program had statistically significant higher

scores or higher levels of goal setting and decision making skills in comparison to students in the control group. Positive effects on goal and decision-making skills were present 4 months later. A sample of item content that represents skills in this category includes: 1) Setting a goal helps me figure out what I want to do,2) When I set a goal, I think about what I need to do to reach my goal, and 3) I make good decision because I stop and think.

(d) Students participating in the TGFD program had statistically significant higher

scores or higher perceptions of the harmful effects of drug use in comparison to students in the control group. A sample of item content that represents skills in

this category includes: 1) Drinking alcohol can make it hard to see, walk and talk,

2) People who smoke cigarettes can quit whenever they want to, 3) Smoking

marijuana improves a person's coordination.

Second Grade- Eight lessons

Lessons-

1: Dreams Can Come True

2: Stop & Think

3: Dealing with Feelings

4: Dog – Gone Good!

5: Be a Friend

6: A Peer Pressure Play

7: Medicine and Good Health

8: Because I Care

Seventh Grade- Eight lessons

Lessons

1: Introducing You and Your Dreams

2: The Decisions is Yours

3: Communication

4: Coping with Stress

5: Tobacco

6: Al K. Hol

7: Marijuana: The Real Deal

8: Kicking a Habit

Eight Grade-eight lessons

Lessons

1: Go for Your Goals

2: Teenagers Talk

3: Communication: Look, Listen and Ask

4: Assert Yourself

5: Teens and Tough Decisions

6: Tobacco: Nasty!

7: Al K. Hol

Too Good for Violence was designed to reduce the risk factors and enhance the protective factors that have been found to mitigate violent behavior. J. David Hawkins and Richard F. Catalano, Jr. classified the protective factors as:

1. Bonding
2. Norms
3. Skills

(1) Bonding is the sense of belonging that comes from opportunities to participate within a supportive, caring group. The corresponding risk factor is a sense of isolation. In order to promote bonding, Too Good for Violence utilizes many community-building activities using cooperative learning as a critical teaching strategy. Students are given frequent opportunities to contribute and encouraged to see that by working together, we can make and keep our world a peaceable place.

(2) Norms are standards or models that are regarded as typical. There are many negative norms that promote violence, such as a belief that competition is always desirable, the idea that violence is the inevitable result of conflict, and the impression that heroes are aggressive "macho" types. Many activities in Too Good for Violence are challenge negative norms and promote positive ones.The curiculum includes activities that demonstrate how cooperation is a more effective solution than competition in many conflict situations, particularly in interpersonal conflicts. Other lessons show that while conflict is inevitable, violence is not. There are also activities that encourage students to redefine what it means to be a man, a woman, and a hero.

(3) Skills are the third protective factor necessary for an effective prevention program. Even if students are bonded to positive, non-violent role models, even if they have positive norms regarding the desirability of cooperative, non-violent conflict resolution, they may still become involved in violence—as victims or perpetrators—if they don't know how to resolve conflicts peacefully. Because non-violent living requires a variety of vital life skills, we teach not only conflict resolution, but also anger management and communication skills, as well as skills for giving and getting respect. These skills are complex and require much reinforcement. The program begins with simple, developmentally-appropriate skills and build from grade level to grade level. This sequential skill-building design simplifies implementation by providing grade-specific lessons that ensure students receive a thorough and comprehensive violence prevention program.

Project TNT

Grade 5-8 - Eight lessons

The theory underlying Project TNT is that young people will be best able to resist using tobacco products if they:
    1) are aware of misleading social information that facilitates tobacco use (e.g. advertising, inflating prevalence estimates)
    2) have skills that counteract the social pressures to achieve approval by using tobacco; and
    3) appreciate the physical consequences that tobacco use may have on their own lives (e.g., the beginnings of addiction).

Project TNT is designed to counteract different causes of tobacco use simultaneously because the behavior is determined by multiple causes. This comprehensive approach is well suited to a wide variety of youth who may differ in risk factors that influence their tobacco use.

Length
Eight core lessons and two booster lessons, each 40 to 50 minutes.

Objectives

At the completion of the program, students will be able to:

• describe the course of tobacco addiction and disease, the consequences of using tobacco, and the prevalence of tobacco use among peers;
• demonstrate effective communication, refusal, and cognitive coping skills;
• identify how the media and advertisers influence teens to use tobacco products;
• identify methods for building their own self-esteem; and
• describe strategies for advocating no tobacco use.

Strategy Implementation

The implementation teacher's manual provides step-by-step instructions for completing each of the 8 core lessons and two booster lessons, together with introductory and background material. Two videos are also included to support the curriculum. The first, " Stand Up For Yourself", emphasizes assertive and refusal skills and is produced specifically and produced by Churchill Media in both English and Spanish specifically to support Session Seven of the curriculum. The second, " Tobacco Use Social Images", is designed to combat tobacco use-specific social images to support Session Eight of the curriculum.

·         Behavioral Findings

• Students in Project TNT reduced initiation of cigarettes by approximately 26% over the control group, when one-year and two-year follow-up outcomes were averaged together.
• Students in Project TNT reduced initiation of smokeless tobacco use by approximately 30%.
• Weekly or more frequent cigarette smoking by students in the Project TNT group was reduced by approximately 60%

For students in the Project TNT group, weekly or more frequently

The theory underlying Project TNT is that young people will be best able to resist using tobacco products if they:
    1) are aware of misleading social information that facilitates tobacco use (e.g. advertising, inflating prevalence estimates)
    2) have skills that counteract the social pressures to achieve approval by using tobacco; and
    3) appreciate the physical consequences that tobacco use may have on their own lives (e.g., the beginnings of addiction).

Lessons

1: Effective Listening & Tobacco Information

2: The Course & Consequences of Tobacco Use

3: Self-Esteem

4: Being True to Yourself & Changing Negative Thoughts

5: Effective Communication

6: Assertiveness and Refusal Skills

7: Adverting Images

8: Social Activism:  Advocating for No Tobacco Use

Grade 6,7 8- one year program with eight lessons and  booster lessons the following year

Project ALERT is a proven solution— nationally recognized, middle grade, substance abuse program that gives students insight, understanding and actual skills for resisting substance abuse. Project ALERT successfully addresses tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and inhalants, the substances teens are most likely to use.

The Project Alert curriculum was developed and field tested over a ten year period by RAND, the nation’s leading think tank on drug policy.  Rand research demonstrates that teens have a mindset about drugs.  By shifting the pro-drug mindset, Project Alert can have powerful results.

Project Alert core strategies:

n                     Motivates students against drug use

n                     Provide skills and strategies to resist drugs

n                     Establish new non-use attitudes and beliefs

The program in the classroom utilizes various techniques: small group activities, role playing exercises, real life videos and guided classroom discussions. The Project ALERT two-year Core Curriculum consists of 8 lessons that are most effective when taught once a week during the first year, plus 3 booster lessons that should be delivered the following year.

Results from RAND study

n                     Reduced initiation of marijuana use by 30%

n                     Decreased current marijuana use by 60%

n                     Reduced past month cigarette use by 20% to 25%

n                     Decreased regular and heavy smoking by 33% to 55%

n                     Developed significantly enhanced anti-drug beliefs

Curriculum Components

Lessons

1: Introduction to Project Alert

2: Consequences of Tobacco Use & Smoking Cessation

3: Consequences of Smoking Marijuana

4: Consequences of Drinking

5: Inhalants & Other Drugs

6: Introduction to Pressures

7: Refusing Pressures

8: Benefits of Not Using Drugs

LIFE SKILLS TRAINING

Grade school Level 1 (8 Lessons)
Grades 3,4,5

Life Skills Training is a proven, highly effective substance abuse prevention/competency enhancement program designed to focus primarily on the major social and psychological factors that promote substance use and abuse. These factors fall into three domains:

n       Drug Resistance Skills enable young people to recognize and challenge common misconceptions about tobacco, alcohol and other drug use. Through coaching and practice, they learn information and practical ATOD (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug use) resistance skills for dealing with peers and media pressure to engage in ATOD use.

n       Personal Self-Management Skills teach students how to examine their self-image and its effects on behavior; set goals and keep track of personal progress; identify everyday decisions and how they may be influenced by others; analyze problem situations, and consider the consequences of each alternative solution before making decisions; reduce stress and anxiety, and look at personal challenges in a positive light.

n       General Social Skills teach students the necessary skills to overcome shyness, communicate effectively and avoid misunderstandings, initiate and carry out conversations, handle social requests, utilize both verbal and nonverbal assertiveness skills to make or refuse requests, and recognize that they have choices other than aggression or passivity when faced with tough situations.

The LST program is designed to:

• provide students with the necessary skills to resist social (peer) pressures to smoke, drink and use drugs,
• help them to develop greater self-esteem, self-mastery, and self-confidence,
• enable children to effectively cope with social anxiety
• increase their knowledge of the immediate consequences of substance use.

Lessons

1. Self-Esteem
2. 2.Decision-making
3. Smoking information
4. Advertising
5. Dealing with stress
6. Communication skills
7. Assertiveness Skills
8. Social Skills