This year millions of school children around the world will benefit from D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), the highly acclaimed program that gives kids the skills they need to avoid involvement in drugs, gangs, and violence.

D.A.R.E. is a police officer-led series of classroom lessons taught to Elementary & Middle School grade children.

D.A.R.E.'srecent decision to transition to the kiR elementary school curriculum was based on the abundance of evidence which has accumulated over years, that it is effective and incredibly cost efficient.

Keepin' it REAL is a multicultural, school-based substance use prevention program for students 10-14 years old. Keepin' it REAL uses a 10-lesson curriculum taught by trained classroom teachers in 45-minute sessions over 10 weeks, with booster sessions delivered in the following school year. The curriculum is designed to help students assess the risks associated with substance abuse, enhance decisionmaking and resistance strategies, improve antidrug normative beliefs and attitudes, and reduce substance use.

The narrative and performance-based curriculum draws from communication competence theory and a culturally grounded resiliency model to incorporate traditional ethnic values and practices that protect against substance use.

The curriculum places special emphasis on resistance strategies represented in the acronym R-E-A-L

• Refuse offers to use substances,

• Explain why you do not want to use substances,

• Avoid situations in which substances are used, and

• Leave situations in which substances are used.

For more information visit http://www.dare.org