newsmakers: Do School Programs Help ....Kids Say No?
	by Angela Spivey

hat’s the best way to keep kids off drugs? According to a UNC-CH study the answer is not something most of us want to hear, considering that the three most popular programs used by schools to prevent drug use are not among those proven to be effective.

Previous long-term studies published in the American Journal of Public Health have shown that the most common programs—Drug Awareness and Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.), Here’s Looking at You, and McGruff’s Drug Prevention and Child Program—aren’t enough to keep kids from experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Denise Hallfors, professor of maternal and child health, says, “We have to go beyond a teacher, parent, or police officer telling school children that drugs are bad for you, don’t use them. We have to use role-playing and skills learning to help children negotiate with peers and make positive choices.”

Hallfors, colleagues, and students conducted a national survey of 81 school districts in 11 states. Besides finding that most schools were using ineffective programs, they also found that due to teacher and money shortages more than half of the drug prevention coordinators did not have enough time—less than 10 hours a week—to spend on drug-use prevention.

A separate survey of North Carolina schools, conducted by doctoral student Melinda Pankratz, found similar results. The purpose of the survey, Pankratz says, was to see how well school districts were adopting a new federal policy requiring recipients of Safe and Drug Free Schools money—funds provided by Congress through the U.S. Department of Education—to implement programs that have been proven effective.

One of the proven programs is Life Skills Training, which focuses on developing students’ social skills. About a third of the school districts, including the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system, use Life Skills Training as their primary drug-use prevention program.

The surveys were funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (national survey) and the N.C. Governor's Institute on Alcohol and Substance Abuse.

© 2000 Endeavors, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved.