Here's hoping your spring and summer are looking a lot better than, well, just about any season of 2020. We have plenty of good news (something we ALL need right now!) to talk about in this issue of the Educator - a new study that your school can participate in, our new Google Drive that's packed with lesson materials, and our upgraded online training course featuring our new prescription opioid+heroin module!

 

Project ALERT Partners with Getting To Outcomes (GTO) for 5-Year Study

• Are you serious about empowering middle school aged students to resist and reduce the use of drugs including alcohol, tobacco/nicotine, vaping, marijuana, and opioids?
• Do you want to enhance student social-emotional learning, including communication skills, self-efficacy, and positive decision-making?
• Do you want to build on your efforts to reduce absenteeism, poor performance, and disruptive behavior?

 

A new Project ALERT-GTO (Getting to Outcomes) study presents a rare opportunity to help boost efforts to keep youth healthy and drug-free. Project ALERT, an evidence-based substance use prevention education curriculum with proven positive results for over 25 years, is joining forces with GTO, an evidence-based implementation framework that provides training and ongoing coaching to help organizations launch programs more effectively and get their desired outcomes. If you have been looking to implement a program like Project ALERT but have not had the resources to jump start it, this study may be able to help!

 

RAND Corporation, the nonprofit institution that runs Project ALERT and GTO, is looking to partner with a limited number of California districts beginning in the 2021-22 school year. Teachers who participate in the study will receive stipends to participate in trainings and free access to Project ALERT and GTO materials, as well as enhanced support to implement ALERT effectively. Participating schools will receive an honorarium for their support of the study while the district will receive assistance in sustaining the program when the study ends.

 

To learn more about how you can receive an evidence-based drug prevention program and coaching support at no cost:

 

• Visit our website
• Send us an email: ProjectAlertGTO@rand.org
• Call us toll-free at 1.833.634.1531

 

We will be happy to arrange a follow-up discussion and answer any of your questions.  We would love to have you join us, but hurry...spots are going fast!

 

Study funded by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Let's hit the ground running with some BIG NEWS! At long last, all our lesson materials—manuals, handouts, video launches, homework, quizzes, supplements, and Google Slides for each lesson (brand new to the curriculum!)—are now available on Google Drive. We hope this “one-stop-shop” will help enhance organization and delivery for all our program partners.

 

Launch Project ALERT's Google Drive

 

Material is housed in Teacher Materials and Student Materials folders for each lesson. All elements are available to view, download, and copy to your own Google Drive account. The new slide decks can also be saved in PowerPoint format if that is your preference for presenting the material.

 

Although different classrooms—virtual and otherwise—will have varied needs, we have not veered much from the original content of the lessons. You are welcome to use and edit the materials as needed, keeping fidelity of the curriculum front and center. For example, some teachers have added an icebreaker at the beginning of the lesson or brief stretching breaks at opportune times during delivery.  Additions like these do not affect fidelity, and we must adapt to hybrid learning environments.

 

As always, we are interested in hearing about the challenges and successes you encounter as you deliver Project ALERT in whatever setting that applies to you – in-person, virtual, or hybrid. What works well and what doesn’t? What have you added to enhance your lesson format? How are you keeping students engaged in a virtual setting? Please email us with any questions or suggestions.

Project ALERT has just undergone its most significant training upgrade in its 30-year history, and it’s now available on our website!  What’s new in “Version 2.0”?  First and foremost, we’ve added an opioid training module to support the addition of the “Prescription Opioids and Heroin” lesson that we first published in 2018. Throughout other lessons, we’ve included references to what’s been trending in the last few years - changes in legislation of recreational marijuana, the emergence and current market dominance of vaping, and the rise of social media as an influencer of beliefs and behavior. It’s all captured in a fresher look, while preserving the iconic and diverse characters that have been Project ALERT’s trademark for three decades. The course is firmly housed on a more modern software platform that’s built to last another 30 years! Check out the upgrade at www.projectalert.com/account.

 

We would encourage those of you who have already completed the original training to take a tour of the new Prescription Opioids and Heroin module.  We are certain it will help prepare you to deliver this very important lesson for these challenging times.

If there is a silver lining to the pandemic and its resulting lockdowns, it is that Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) once again has taken a seat at the head of the class.  Reports have proliferated that kids of all ages have suffered significantly—with those living in disparate conditions and districts enduring even greater difficulty—from not having daily, tactile interactions with teachers and classmates.  Many youth either could not keep up with the expectation of participating in virtual classes or actually missed the 2020 school year entirely, as they lacked access to personal computers or reliable internet connections at home. 

 

Programming that incorporates SEL competencies can help offset some of the negative effects brought on by unexpected adversity, give students confidence and support they need through tough times of personal and collective disruption, and equip them with some valuable tools to persevere and even thrive in difficult seasons. SEL in conjunction with applied behavioral skills should be prominent components in evidence-based curricula. It comprises research-based, age-appropriate competencies woven into curricula in a relevant manner that enhance the learner’s understanding and skill acquisition.

 

Though SEL seems to be back in vogue, it has been a core construct of the Project ALERT curriculum since its development in the late 1980s. Each lesson was designed not just to deter students from the risks of substance use, but to engage them in activities that would help advance physical, emotional, and social health. Check out the Overview folder in our new Google Drive to discover a few examples of how Project ALERT activities map to these important competencies.

Project ALERT has some recommendations for maintaining fidelity as you navigate delivery mode options for your classrooms. With all our materials being free and online, we feel we might be ahead of the COVID curve. 

 

From the program home page, click on the big green Google Drive/Distance Learning Guidance button to launch our new web page that offers some guidance for many of the activities that comprise the curriculum. Distance learning guidance follows the material about the new Project ALERT Google Drive.

 

Image copyright Flickr/Des Moines Public Schools.