Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) is a collaborative effort by certified law enforcement officers, educators, students, parents, and the community, to offer an educational program in the classroom to prevent drug abuse and violence among children and youth.

The emphasis of D.A.R.E. is to help students recognize and resist the many direct and subtle pressures that influence them to experiment with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, inhalants, and other drugs or to engage in violence. The D.A.R.E. program offers preventive strategies to enhance those protective factors, especially bonding to the family, school, and community. These strategies focus on the development of social competence, communication skills, self-esteem, empathy, decision making, conflict resolution, sense of purpose, independence, and positive alternative activities to drug abuse and other destructive behavior.

The program content for D.A.R.E. is organized into seventeen 45-60 minute lessons taught by a uniformed law enforcement officer in the classroom. The Auburn Police Department currently has six certified D.A.R.E. instructors, each one assigned to a particular elementary school. D.A.R.E. is taught to each of the 5th grade classes in the Auburn School District, both public and parochial schools, by each elementary school's respective D.A.R.E. Officer.

Auburn Police D.A.R.E. Car

In addition, three of the six D.A.R.E. officers are certified to instruct the Middle School D.A.R.E. program - (8th Grade Level) which consists of 10 consecutive days taught in conjunction with the student's Health curriculum. The advanced D.A.R.E. program consists of topics relating to Drug Abuse and Violence, and how to resolve conflicts without the use of violence.

D.A.R.E., in both the elementary level and the middle school level, offers a variety of interactive group participation, cooperative-learning activities, which are designed to encourage students to solve problem of major importance in their lives. The D.A.R.E. programs is considered just one step towards decreasing the current drug problem as well as to the ever increasing problem with youth violence in our society.

Det. Myron Szul, D.A.R.E. Officer