Evaluation of DARE to make a Choice, July 2007 - New Zealand Police

Evaluation of DARE to make a Choice

July 2007

A report prepared by Denise Lievore and Pat Mayhew (with assistance from Tony Lee), Crime and Justice Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington for New Zealand Police

First published in July 2007 by New Zealand Police, PO Box 3017, Wellington, New Zealand

Crown Copyright 2007

ISBN 0-477-02974-4


Summary

The Crime and Justice Research Centre (CJRC) carried out a new evaluation of the DARE to make a Choice (Choice) drug education programme.1 The evaluation was based on a ?best practice? approach outlined in a CJRC scoping study commissioned by NZ Police in 2005. The premise was that if the best practice principles are being met, it is reasonable to suppose this provides good indirect information of Choice’s likely effectiveness in meeting its aims and objectives.

Choice was developed by the New Zealand DARE Foundation and New Zealand Police. It was inspired by the American DARE, although the programmes have little in common. Choice was originally launched in 1991. Different aspects were evaluated over the next six years. This led to a re-launch of Choice in 1998 to bring it line with best practice principles identified for drug education in a report commissioned by the NZ DARE Foundation. The current evaluation is the first to look at the revised version of Choice.

Choice aims to prepare young people to make responsible choices and decisions about the use of drugs and to give them the skills and confidence to implement these choices and decisions. Drugs cover alcohol, tobacco, other legal drugs and proscribed drugs.

Choice is a school-based programme delivered by teachers and Police Education Officers (PEOs). The Choice curriculum comprises two separate programmes - one for school children in Years 5-6, and one for Years 7-8 (i.e., those aged 10 to 13). The current study is restricted to the programme for the older age group.

The programmes for both Years 5-6 and Years 7-8 have a sequence of clusters, which:

  • establish relationships and procedures for the programme;
  • foster feelings of self worth and build effective communication;
  • develop decision making skills;
  • help children to identify drugs and develop skills to resist drug misuse;
  • help students to identify hassles and find people and strategies to handle these; and
  • draw everything together and give students an opportunity to share new skills.

The curriculum has a flexible structure to allow teachers to plan programmes and choose activities that meet the levels at which students are working. Ideally children will undertake Choice twice during Years 5-8. The Teaching Guide recommends that children require about 22 to 23 hours of Choice. Both the Years 5-6 and Years 7-8 programmes have activities designed to meet these guidelines. PEOs should be present for 10-15 hours.

Choice is a widely used programme. It was taught to 34,160 Years 5-6 and Years 7-8 school students during the 2003/2004 police corporate year.

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Table of contents

Acknowledgements
Tables
Figures
Boxes
Executive Summary
1 Introduction
1.1 The development of Choice in New Zealand
1.2 Aims of Choice
1.3 The Ministry of Youth Development work
2 CJRC’s Scoping Study
2.1 United States evaluations of DARE
2.2 Previous New Zealand evaluations of Choice
2.3 Best practice principles
2.4 The choice of approach for the current evaluation
3 Aims and Methods of the Evaluation
3.1 Aims of the current evaluation
3.2 Document analysis
3.3 The web survey
3.4 Case study schools
4 Comparison of Choice and Best Practice Principles
4.1 The NZ Curriculum and Choice
4.2 Best practice principles identified by MYD and Pickens
4.3 DARE to make a Choice in Your School - a Working Booklet
4.4 DARE to make a Choice Years 7-8 Teaching Guide
4.5 Overview
5 The Schools Survey
5.1 Content (principles 2 - 7)
5.2 Summary of how well the content of Choice accorded with best practice principles
5.3 Process (principles 8 -11)
5.4 Summary of how well the process of Choice accorded with best practice principles
5.5 Context (principles 12, 13, 15, 16)
5.6 Summary of how well the context of Choice accorded with best practice principles
5.7 Suggestions for improving Choice
5.8 Overview
6 The Case Study Schools
6.1 Content (principles 2 - 7)
6.2 Process (principles 8 - 11)
6.3 Context (principles 12 - 16)
6.4 Overview
7 Conclusions
References
Appendix A: Comparison of best practice principles - MYD (2004) and Pickens (1998)
Appendix B: Pedagogical underpinnings - DARE to make a Choice Working Booklet
Appendix C: Implementing Choice - Years 7-8 Teaching Guide
Appendix D: Results from schools survey

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