Pubdate: Tue, 18 Mar 2008
Source: Beacon, The (CN NF)
Copyright: 2008 The Beacon
Contact:  http://www.ganderbeacon.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3279
Author: Brian Scott
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)

LAKEWOOD ACADEMY TAKING PROACTIVE APPROACH TOWARDS DRUGS, ALCOHOL

Lakewood Academy principal Rene Cashin knows as well as anyone what 
kind of peer pressure students at schools all over the province are facing.

And included in those pressures are the influences of drugs, tobacco 
and alcohol.

"If you don't believe that, you're sticking your head in the sand," 
Mr. Cashin told The Beacon last week. "So, if that's there, you have 
to be aware that it's there, and you can either be proactive or reactive.

"You can either try to get the interventions in to help assist these 
kids, or you can react when you've got a big problem."

For that reason, earlier this school year, Lakewood Academy began 
participating in the DARE - Drug Abuse Resistance Program - program 
with the Gander RCMP detachment.

Once a week, for eight weeks, Cpl. Ann Noel of the RCMP's drug and 
organized crime awareness section, visits with the Grade 6 students 
at the school, and each week, they discuss a different topic and find 
a way to react when facing any one of those influences.

"It takes a student through a DARE decision-making model, which 
allows them to know how to go into a difficult situation, whether it 
be choosing the right movie to watch to whether or not they should 
try cigarettes to trying drugs, alcohol, or bullying someone," said Cpl Noel.

It's an interactive program, she added, that supplies the students 
with the facts on alcohol, drugs and tobacco, and by the end of the 
eight weeks, they know how to respond to those situations.

"Without realizing it, they get to learn and understand what it's all 
about," she said.

It is the younger groups that are the most impressionable, according 
to Mr. Cashin, which is why students in Grade 6 at the school are the 
ones participating.

In previous generations, he said children would often not be 
introduced to drugs and alcohol until they reached Grade 8 or Grade 
9. These days, they're introduced to that at younger ages.

"We've already had situations during the last two or three years 
where we've had students in Grade 6 involved in smoking and drugs," 
said Mr. Cashin.

"We feel the need to make sure that we make these children aware of 
what the consequences are, and to give them the educational 
information, so they can make the informed decisions because right 
now, most of them are following along with their peers, and in a 
community our size, the peer of a Grade 6 student isn't a Grade 6 
student; their peer is probably an older."

This is not the first time the school has been participating in the 
program. Mr. Cashin said the school was associated with it a few 
years ago. But now that it's back, the school hopes to keep providing 
the program at the school for future Grade 6 classes.

The end result he hopes will be more and more students making a 
lifelong commitment of making better decisions towards drugs and alcohol.

"Sometimes you don't think a decision you make in Grade 6 is going to 
follow through for the rest of your life," he said. "... But if 
you're able to affect change in the children young enough, they will 
start affecting change in the adults as they start to grow."

It's an interactive program that supplies the students with the facts 
on alcohol, drugs and tobacco...- Cpl. Ann Noel
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom