Fifth grade teachers are receiving a two-part set of underage drinking-related materials including Reach Out Now: Talk with Your Fifth Graders about Underage Drinking, a four- page set of lessons and in-class activities for teachers to use. There is also a take-home packet for students and their parents entitled Talk With Your Fifth Grader about Underage Drinking.
Public figures, including the first ladies of 15 states, will also teach fifth-graders the anti-underage drinking message. There will be at least one teach-in in every state. Additionally, a new curriculum and parents' guide for sixth graders is being distributed to schools nationwide to reinforce the fifth-grade message.
"While we know that the majority of youth do not drink, research tells us that people who start drinking at early ages are more likely to have problems with alcohol as adults," said Charles G. Curie, Administrator of SAMHSA. "Data from SAMHSA's National Survey on Drug Use and Health strongly suggests that our messages must reach younger populations – those in fifth and sixth grades. Reach Out Now is designed to influence children through their teachers and schools, as well as their families, by providing proven prevention activities." The 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that over 2.6 million adolescents 12-17 were binging on alcohol in 2002 and 630,000 were already heavy drinkers. There were 287,000 12-year-olds who used alcohol in the past year, and 717,000 13-year-olds who used alcohol in the past year. To counter this drinking by youngsters, Reach Out Now provides lessons on understanding the effects of alcohol; a science experiment in which students observe the effects of pouring alcohol on an egg; and a unit on making healthy decisions by using critical-thinking skills and finding alternative activities to drinking.
The Family Resource Guide suggests that parents and care givers maintain good lines of communication, get involved in the child's life, make and enforce clear and consistent rules, serve as a positive role model, help a child know how to choose friends wisely, and be aware of the child's activities. To help parents take these steps, activities for each are suggested. For example, in one activity, the parent helps the child develop different ways of refusing alcohol, using role-playing. Parents are also encouraged to create a family calendar to keep track of the activities of all family members so that the parent is more involved in the child's life.
This is the third year of Reach Out Now. In 2003, Reach Out Now materials were distributed to over 100,000 class rooms nationwide reaching more than three million students. The materials were developed by SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) and Scholastic, Inc., and were based on research supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and SAMHSA.
The public/private partnership allows SAMHSA to merge its knowledge about underage drinking prevention with Scholastic, Inc.'s reputation for excellence in the development of classroom materials. In 2003, approximately 3/4 of all teachers surveyed (74 percent) recalled receiving the program. The average for similar supplemental in-school programs is 46 percent. Of those who recalled receiving the materials, when surveyed, nearly three out of four had already used or planned to use the program.
The Reach Out Now materials have been enthusiastically received by the Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free, a consortium of governors' spouses from states across the country who are helping to raise awareness of the underage drinking problem and encouraging use of the materials. SAMHSA, NIAAA, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and other federal agencies and offices support the Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free nationwide initiative.
The Department of Education's Safe and Drug-Free Schools program has also announced the availability of the materials for use in school-based programs.
