The Drug Abuse Resistence Education (D.A.R.E.) Program has been taught in the Barberton School System since 1988 and has continued success and support from the community. The program brings students into contact with a positive role model - a uniformed police officer. It encourages communication between children and the officers of their community, often forging friendships that remain throughout adolescense and into adulthood.
The youth are presented with a positive role model, an alternative to some of the other potentially negative role models that may be available to the children.
This interaction between police officer and youth begins in the classroom; the D.A.R.E. program is a collaboration between police and schools, placing uniformed police officers into the classrooms to teach a formal curriculum. D.A.R.E. targets primarily the fifth and sixth grades, offering the D.A.R.E. core curriculum in an attempt to prepare students for entry into middle, junior high, and high school, where they will be most vulnerable to succumb to peer pressure.
One of the strengths of the D.A.RE. program is that it involves a fully developed, universal curriculum. This curriculum is taught to every designated D.A.R.E. Officer, who then presents it in a classroom environment within a school system. A basic principal of this curriculum is that elementary school children lack sufficient social skills to resist peer pressure. D.A.R.E. Instructors are not called upon to use scare tactics, rather they are trained to teach their students a variety of techniques that will enable them to resist peeer pressure. These techniques arm the children with assertiveness skills, improved self esteem, as well as solid decision making and judgement skills.
To find out more about the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program, click on the link below to go to the D.A.R.E. Homepage. If you would like more specific information about the Barberton Police Department D.A.R.E. program, please call our department at 848-6701 Monday through Friday during regular business hours.
The GANG RESISTANCE EDUCATION AND TRAINING (G.R.E.A.T.) PROGRAM is designed to help children set goals for themselves, resist pressures, learn how to resolve conflicts without violence, and understand how gangs and youth violence impact the quality of their lives. G.R.E.A.T. students discover for themselves the ramifications of gang and youth violence through structured exercises and interactive approaches to learning. Through the combined efforts of law enforcement, the schools, and the community, we can make a difference in the lives of children across America by providing them with the necessary skills and informationto say "NO" to gangs and acts of random violence.
Gangs are like cockroaches...once you see one, you can be sure there are many more around. It becomes essential that we take a different approach to attacking the emerging gang problem affecting us. While many police departments experience temporary success by establishing task forces, gang members generally re-group and develop better ways to avoid recognition and apprehension. Youth gangs do not represent a new problem, but the mobilization and networking abilities exhibited by these gangs has greatly intensified.
We realize that suppression by itself will not rid our communities of youth violence. The Barberton Police Department G.R.E.A.T. Program was created on the premise that both proactive and reactive programs must work in conjunction with one another. Only in this way will we be effective in dealing with the youth problem and containing its spread.
Too often, we, as adults, take for granted that our youth "know better". The reality of the situation is that our society is changing and possibly changing for the worse. These youth need guidance and we cannot take anything for granted anymore.
The G.R.E.A.T. Program's ultimate goal is to keep youth out of gangs and off the streets. The program provides a broad-based message that encourages youth to become responsible members of their communities. Police officers teach the students how to set goals, resist gang pressures, understand the positive effectf of cultural diversity, and resolve conflict without violence.
To read more about the philosophy, history, and curriculum of G.R.E.A.T., click on the link below to go to their Website.
The Barberton Police Department still needs your help in solving this crime. If you have any information that you believe may assist us in solving this murder, please call our Detective Bureau at 848-6703.
