Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2005, $197,329)
In response to a request for help from local school principals, the DOJ-OJJ funds will be used to contribute to the cost of operating a new school-based drug prevention program known as Project SAFE. Project SAFE will operate in four schools and serve 2,500 youth in grades five through twelve. The program will offer 32 weeks of one hour classes. A recently developed 900 page Project SAFE proprietary curriculum will be used. The curriculum will be based on showing how risk factors such as peer pressure, low self esteem, family instability and alienation can lead to addictive behavior. There will also be two workshops for parents at each school offered during evening hours. A quarterly community-school prevention newsletter will also be prepared and distributed. The principals and teaching staff of each of the four schools will be active partners with the SAFE Foundation. An evaluation will be administered by the SAFE Foundation. It will be designed to be used as a tool for ongoing improvement during the year as well as an annual objective measurement of intermediate outcomes. The data collection will include school grades, attendance records and pre and post program student questionnaires. The OJJ grant will help to determine the effectiveness of the curriculum and modify the curriculum where necessary. The grant will be undertaken through a partnership between SBH Community Services and the SAFE Foundation.
Objectives: the following four objectives will be used to guide the day-to-day implementation of Project SAFE:
' To instruct 2,500 youth in a systematic, thirty two week, age appropriate
drug, alcoholism, gambling and tobacco addiction prevention curriculum.
' At the end of the year, at least 70% of the youth will have stronger skills for identifying, understanding and managing at risk behavior.
' To increase the involvement of parents in addiction prevention activities. To give parents specific tools they need to better understand how risk factors can lead to addictive behavior.
' To raise overall community awareness of the well-documented, strong relationship between risk factors and addictive behavior.
NCA/NCF