The President and CEO of D.A.R.E., a drug prevention program met with the state's drug director in hopes of bringing the new aspects of the projects to schools in Arkansas.
D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) is an educational program that seeks to prevent the use of drugs, membership in gangs, and violent behavior starting with youth.
The program has a new opioid crisis curriculum for kindergarten through 12th-grade students. With overdose deaths in Arkansas as young as 12, the curriculum looks to emphasize the negative affects opioid addiction has on kids their age.
The state is always looking at how messaging surrounding the opioid crisis can be beneficial to young people and how to help empower drug resistance education.
The new curriculum begins with about 8 minutes of explanation, then the students work in small cooperative learning groups developing their plans on how they're going to use the information toward their own lives in a manner they feel comfortable using.
D.A.R.E.'s president and CEO said the program is usually a child's first introduction to police officers, which helps build positive relationships early on.