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Prevention
Dimensions Drug & Alcohol Curriculum
Since 1983, thousands of Utah educators have completed the inservice training that accompanies Prevention Dimensions. This curriculum is taught under the State Health Core as part of the Substance Abuse Prevention Standard. It has been formally evaluated and statewide studies have been conducted to determine its effectiveness. The evaluation findings to date are encouraging and indicate that the program has had a significant preventative impact on students. Overall, Utah's prevention education curriculum "appears to be effective as a deterrent to substance use initiation and effective in reinforcing several of the attitudes, values and social skills which serve to protect a young person from the risk of substance abuse." (Division of Social Science Research, University of Utah: "Evaluation of the K-12 Curriculum." ) It has also been recognized by SAMHSA(Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services and Administration) as one of its "Promising Practices" Programs. The curriculum is updated and enhanced on an on-going basis. It is now in an update phase which should be completed and distributed by the beginning of the 2002-2003 school year. The program includes teaching resource files and audio/visual materials for PK-12 grade levels. It should be part of every students yearly curriculum instruction. The effort is to focus on infusing prevention education strategies into all core curriculum areas to create a total prevention attitude. To assist with the enhancement process, an ongoing PK-12 Prevention Dimensions Steering Committee consisting of education specialists, prevention specialists. health specialists, teachers, drug-free school coordinators, etc. meets regularly. This committee not only gives direction as to the update of the curriculum, but also enhancement of local teacher inservice trainings in order to better motivate teachers to use effective prevention strategies.
For questions or additional information, please call Jeani Mulliner at (801) 412-2953. |