MINNESOTA DARE

Mission

The DARE program has three main goals. First, DARE seeks to provide students with a knowledge base on the effects of drug abuse that go beyond the physical ramifications and extend to emotional, social, and economic aspects of life. Secondly, DARE aims to build decision-making and problem solving skills and strategies to help students make informed decisions and resist drug use, peer pressure, and violence. Lastly, an integral part of the DARE program is to provide students with alternatives to drug use.

Programs

The Minnesota D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program touches over 100,000 students annually. The K-4th Grade visitation program educates children to help keep them safe, protect them from drugs and violence, and teach them to recognize, avoid and report situations that may endanger their safety and personal health. The Elementary School Curriculum is directed toward developing the capacities needed to enable students to take charge of their lives with particular emphasis on substance use and abuse. The Middle School/Junior High School Curriculum helps students choose to live a quality life by developing a deep understanding of the complexities and possibilities of daily life, the nature of the choices to be made, the consequences that come with these choices, and the skills to act and reflect on one's choices. This curriculum focuses on ways to deal with a specific set of problembatic life situations--namely those involving internal and external pressures to use substances and deal effectively with feelings of frustration and anger. The Senior High Curriculum focuses on the everyday situations that high school student's encounter. These lessons emphasize social skills that enable students to act in their own best interest when facing high-risk choices and to handle feelings of anger properly, without causing harm to themselves or others. The D.A.R.E. Special Education curriculum has been designed to serve all areas of disability in all service delivery environments through adapted expectations, curricular materials, and teaching strategies. The D.A.R.E. Parent Program addresses the increasing awareness of the need for comprehensive adult caregiver roles of teacher, counselor, facilitator, and adult role model, the program allows participants to process information about the tasks of parenting. Minnesota D.A.R.E., Inc. also provides additional programming in Bullying/School Violence, Methamphetamine, Internet Safety, Perscription Drug Abuse, Native American Issues, and Take Home Parent Units.