State’s DARE officers, educators to gather for conference

Hundreds of Louisiana Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) officers will arrive in Houma for a conference next week, and educators are again being asked to participate.

The 17th annual Louisiana D.A.R.E. Officer’s Training Conference takes place July 16-17. This is the first time Houma has hosted the event.

The registration fee is $35, which includes two days of classes and lunches. Registration takes place July 14-15 at the Quality Inn, 210 South Hollywood Road.

All workshops and seminars will be held across the street at Vandebilt Catholic High School.

“The general purpose is to update our training, and to get better knowledge of the students’ ever-changing world of drugs,” said Lt. Steve Gibson of the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office and president the state association of the D.A.R.E. program.

D.A.R.E. officers have to put in a certain number of in-service hours in order to teach the program and stay up-to-date on the curriculum.

There are over 40 classes and workshops being conducted, some focused specifically for educators.

“We’re trying to get them first-hand knowledge as to what law enforcement goes through, give them an eye-opener of what some of the kids are doing,” said Gibson. “They’re looking to teach everyday, so they may be sidetracked to certain things going on in the classroom.”

Educator workshops include such topics as trends in gang and drug activities, Internet safety, juvenile law and “active shooter” awareness, which exposes the history of deadly school shootings.

One that may be particular useful is a two-day Defensive Tactics for Educators workshop.

“It is a non-aggressive style of wristlocks, pressure points, and joint-lock manipulation,” said Sgt. Carl Dabadie of the Baton Rouge Police Department Training Academy. “We’ll teach them how to handle students who are disruptive without looking like your physically beating them to death.”

Baton Rouge Police Chief Jeff LeDuff was originally scheduled to teach the workshops, but Dabadie or another sergeant from the academy will do so.

There were several student-educator incidents in Terrebonne Parish schools throughout the 2007-08 school year.

The goal is calm the student down and keep the educator and anyone else around safe until a SRO (school resource officer) or police detain the student.

“The techniques we would teach are backed by the PPCT (Police Pressure point Control Tactics) System,” Dabadie said. “We have all the medical research and legal research we need to back up the techniques and their effectiveness and that the chance of injury is very minimal.”

Police recruits go through a 16-hour class in the academy; the educators at the conference will get more like a demonstration.

D.A.R.E. is a police officer-led series of classroom lessons that teaches children from kindergarten through 12th grade how to resist drugs, gangs and violence. The program was founded in Los Angeles in 1983 and has been implemented in 75 percent of our nation’s school districts and in more than 43 countries around the world.

“The core classes (one lesson a week for 17 consecutive weeks delivered by a D.A.R.E. officer) are aimed at the sixth grade level,” Gibson said. “We can do it in the fifth or sixth grade. In Terrebonne Parish, we do it in the sixth grade.”

For students in kindergarten through fourth grade, D.A.R.E. officers do four “visitation lessons” – 15- to 20-minute lessons covering such topics as obeying laws, personal safety, and the helpful and harmful uses of medicines and drugs.

The parish has implemented a junior high curriculum and is in the process of starting a high school curriculum.

Whether it is off-campus or classroom dangers, D.A.R.E. officers are committed to teaching students how to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence or the use of alcohol or drugs.

As the theme of this year’s conference articulates, “Pour Les Enfants, Pour Les Vie!” – For Children, For Life!

For more information on the conference, contact Lt. Steve Gibson at (985) 709-1688 or e-mail sgibson@tpso.net.

Send registration form/fee to Lt. Steve Gibson, P.O. Box 396, Bourg, LA 70343.