The Port Jervis police recently taught two 10-week educational programs that reached more than 300 elementary and middle schoolers in the local district.
The programs, D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) and Too Good for Drugs, are designed to help students make healthy and responsible life decisions about drinking, drugs, and relationships, according to Police Chief William Worden.
Officer Nicholas Osowick—who as a youth was in former officer Kelly Decker’s D.A.R.E. class—taught the program for the first time to about 130 fifth graders this year.
“I got to put my cop mind away for a second and get my teaching cap on,” Osowick told The Epoch Times. “I had a couple of rocky starts, but toward the end, I really enjoyed it—I really enjoyed the kids that were receptive and participating in the program.”
One challenge was to get students to take in the facts about the harm of drinking and smoking, which is depicted as normal in almost every TV show around them, he said.
Of the five resistance strategies that he taught, most students liked “avoiding the situation” and “hanging around with like-minded people.”
Sgt. Nicole McGowan taught another program, Too Good for Drugs, to about 200 eighth graders this year; many of the students were in her D.A.R.E. class when they were in fifth grade.
“It was neat to see them go from elementary school to middle school and now get ready for high school and see how they grow and develop,” McGowan told The Epoch Times.
Aside from substance abuse, the program developed by the Mendez Foundation also covers teenage dating and ways to avoid violent behaviors in a relationship.
Although violence in teen relations is relatively rare, it’s important to teach the students about its warning signs, as well as how minor behavioral problems can become dangerous or even criminal acts, McGowan said.
“At some point, they all become adults,” she said, adding that domestic violence is among the most common calls to Port Jervis police.
During the last lesson on June 8, McGowan asked the students whether a guy getting mad at his girlfriend and punching a hole in his bedroom wall would count as a warning sign.
Some students said that it wouldn’t because he took out his anger on the property, not the person, to which McGowan responded, “But that’s where the behavior starts to escalate.”
Both Osowick and McGowan said that the programs also help youths to see officers as helpers, especially for those who have seen police respond to calls at their houses or arrest their parents.
“They see us in a positive light, and somebody that they can talk to in school or outside the school,” McGowan said. “Many of them now think of us as their instructors before they think of us as patrol officers.”
Both programs are primarily funded by charitable individuals and organizations.
