|
A Model Program
The Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), has designated Protecting You/Protecting Me as a model program. SAMHSA gives model designation when a program meets “the highest scientific standards and its developers have the capacity to provide high-quality materials, training, and technical assistance to communities that wish to use the program.” (SAMHSA), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The Developing Brain
The Protecting You/Protecting Me curriculum is designed to fill the gap in current prevention programs that haven’t yet incorporated the latest research on children's brains and the developmental risks associated with exposure to alcohol before the age of 21.
Protecting You/Protecting Me helps reach children before they have fully shaped their attitudes and opinions about alcohol use by youth and their role in preventing it. The curriculum focuses on the effects of alcohol on the developing brain during the first 21 years of life. It takes the stand of zero tolerance on any alcohol or other drug use for those under 21.
The lessons taught by trained teachers, high school students or community prevention specialists serving schools reinforce the fact that the brains of children and adolescents are still maturing and respond to alcohol dramatically different than adults’ brains, putting children at a much higher risk.
Customized by Grade Level
The Protecting You/Protecting Me curriculum provides a series of 40 science- and health-based lessons (eight lessons for each grade 1 through 5) that are designed to be incorporated into a school’s core curriculum and meet required educational standards. Click here for a sample lesson plan.
The scope and sequence of the lessons are designed to deliver content that’s age- and grade-appropriate. And the sessions are different lengths, depending on the ability of children to focus and understand. The first and second grade lessons generally last 20-25 minutes, and the fifth grade lessons last 45-50 minutes. Click here for more information about the scope and sequence, which is correlated to national education standards and some state-specific educational standards.
Skills Young Students Can Use
Protecting You/Protecting Me is the only curriculum that teaches children how to protect themselves and make informed decisions about alcohol based on the latest brain research.
The curriculum covers specific ways to handle difficult situations such as reducing the risks if riding with a driver who is not alcohol-free. In addition, the lessons cover a variety of life skills including media awareness, stress management, resistance strategies, decision-making and communication.
Students learn these skills and information through group activities, structured discussion, role-play, exploring real life topics and issues, and parent involvement.
Program Goals
The goal of the Protecting You/Protecting Me curriculum is to prevent injury and death of youth due to underage drinking, and vehicle-related risks, especially as passengers in vehicles in which the driver is not alcohol-free.
Immediate Goals
- Prevent or delay the onset of alcohol and other drug use by youth.
- Reduce the number of children riding with impaired (unsafe) drivers.
- Increase the number of children who know how to protect themselves when they’re only option is to ride with an impaired driver.
Long-term Goals
- Reduce the incidence and prevalence of alcohol and other drug use among youth.
- Reduce the incidence and prevalence of young people riding with impaired drivers.
- Reduce the incidence and prevalence of injury and death for young people while riding with an impaired driver.
Learning Objectives
The Protecting You/Protecting Me curriculum focuses on five critical learning objectives:
- Increase knowledge of how the human brain develops and the negative impact of exposure to non-prescribed psychoactive substances on the brain, especially the negative impact of alcohol on the developing brain up to age 21.
- Maintain non-use attitudes regarding psychoactive substance use/abuse, particularly about alcoholic beverages.
- Maintain, reinforce and increase non-use attitudes regarding future psychoactive substance use/abuse, particularly future use and abuse of alcoholic beverages.
- Increase social skills, especially resistance skills and decision-making skills.
- Increase media-awareness with regard to advertising of alcoholic beverages.
Implementation Models
MADD offers an implementation model that's right for every school.
Youth-led implementation engages high-school students who are enrolled in a leadership/peer helping or service-learning class as instructors. Adult-led implementation draws on school faculty and staff members or on community-based agencies serving the schools. Here’s a detailed look at both models.
Youth-led Implementation
Under the youth-led implementation model, high school students who are enrolled in a for-credit peer-helping or leadership course deliver the Protecting You/Protecting Me lessons to elementary students. Under the supervision of their teacher as part of their coursework, they prepare and present the lessons to grade school students. Peer helpers delivering this program commit to remaining alcohol, tobacco and drug free.
The youth-led Protecting You/Protecting Me model gives teenagers an opportunity for leadership development and a way to make a valuable contribution to their community. In addition to delivering Protecting You/Protecting Me to elementary classes, participating high school students also deliver presentations about the impact of alcohol on the developing brain to other teens and adults in the community.
In the evaluation of the Protecting You/Protecting Me curriculum, student peer helpers were found to be as effective, and in some areas even more effective, as adult classroom teachers. In other settings, adolescent peers have done as well as or better than adults in teaching about general health (Meyer, Nicholson, Danish, Fries, & Polk, 2000), smoking (Prince, 1995), and HIV/AIDS (Dunn, Ross, Caines, & Howorth, 1998).
The youth-led model works best in high schools with well-established peer leadership/helping programs and committed teacher facilitators. To lead the program, teachers need to:
- Participate in a three-day National Teacher Training Institute.
- Carefully select at least 22 students who are enrolled in the peer helping/leadership class, available to attend Protecting You/Protecting Me training and teach the lessons.
- Train and mentor student instructors throughout the course.
- Secure strong administrative support.
Adult-led Implementation
Adult-led implementation utilizes school faculty and staff or prevention specialists from community-based agencies serving schools. Classroom teachers, guidance counselors, nurses, social workers, prevention specialists or other school staff members that have regular classroom contact with children in grades 1-5 are all appropriate to deliver the curriculum.
Staff from community-based agencies serving the school can also be used to deliver Protecting You/Protecting Me. Those appropriate to deliver the curriculum include staff from local prevention agencies or councils, law enforcement personnel, school resource officers, community outreach specialists and DWI prevention specialists.
Evaluation Results
The Protecting You/Protecting Me curriculum has been evaluated and the results show that the program is effective in achieving its goals.
Youth-Led PY/PM Evaluation
The youth-led evaluation study, which was funded by the Criminal Justice Division of the Texas Governor’s Office, evaluated the effectiveness of Protecting You/Protecting Me when taught by high school students in the Peer Assistance and Leadership (PAL) program (peer leaders).
Results have shown that the youth-led model of implementation has a positive effect on the elementary students who receive the curriculum and the high school students who teach it. The youth-led approach has also increased the number of elementary students who receive the Protecting You/Protecting Me curriculum. In the 2003-2004 school year, 496 peer leaders taught in 387 classrooms to 8,204 elementary students.
Elementary students who received Protecting You/Protecting Me:
- Improved their vehicle safety skills (knowing how to protect themselves when they have no option but to ride with an impaired driver).
- Became more media literate (understanding how television and other commercials can slant the truth or not tell the whole story).
- Increased their knowledge of the brain (knowing when the brain is fully developed and how alcohol affects the developing brain).
Adult-Led
Protecting You/Protecting Me Evaluation. A five-year study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the Protecting You/Protecting Me lessons on students when taught by classroom teachers. Classroom teachers in Grades 1-5 in four schools in Texas and Montana taught Protecting You/Protecting Me. Each Protecting You/Protecting Me school was matched with a nearby comparison school based on the students’ demographics and the size of the school. Students in all eight schools took surveys before the lessons were started (pre-tests) and again after they were completed (post-tests). The analysis focused on fifth grade students, some of whom received the full five years of Protecting You/Protecting Me, and found statistically significant differences between students who received Protecting You/Protecting Me and the comparison students who received no lessons.trong>
Students receiving Protecting You/Protecting Me, relative to the comparison students, were found to have:
- Increased their knowledge of the effects of alcohol on the developing brain
- Increased their perceptions of the potential harm of alcohol use (i.e. how much people under 21 harm themselves if they drink beer, wine, liquor, or flavored alcoholic beverages.)
- Improved their vehicle safety skills (i.e. how to protect themselves if they have no choice but to ride with a driver who has been drinking).
- Increased their negative attitudes toward underage drinking (i.e. do not think it is okay for people under the age of 21 to drink alcohol)
- Increased their intentions not to use alcohol in the future, and
- Reported decreased riding with an impaired driver.trong>
National Sponsor
MADD thanks State Farm for its commitment as the national sponsor of Protecting You/Protecting Me and for providing funding to bring the Youth-led Model to your school. Your local State Farm agent can serve as a partner in helping you bring the program to your community.
Get Involved
Alcohol is the No.1 drug of choice for young people—and they’re starting to drink at earlier ages than ever before. Protecting You/Protecting Me provides a powerful, effective way to teach children about alcohol years before they’re exposed to the risk.
Here are some practical tips for bringing Protecting You/Protecting Me to a school in your area:
- Click here to download the Protecting You/Protecting Me general information packet and review it with the superintendent of schools or elementary principal. Let them know how important it is for the children in your community to know how the human brain works, what can harm their brains and how they can protect their own development.
- Contact your local MADD office for support. They may have contacts with the school district and information about other groups and coalitions that are interested in preventing underage alcohol use. These groups might be able to help you bring Protecting You/Protecting Me to community schools.
- Find out if your community has hosted a town hall meeting to address underage drinking and, if so, who the contact is. Let that contact know that Protecting You/Protecting Me is a good follow up to address the community’s concerns.
|