Core Components

Dare to be You is a programme for families with pre-school children who have been assessed to be at an increased risk of developing later substance misuse. The aim is to increase resilience in these children and families as a way of reducing the risks of drug and alcohol misuse in adolescence. The key concepts of the programme are captured in the acronym DARE:

Decision-making, reasoning skills, and solving problems
Assertive communication and social skills
Responsibility (internal locus of control/attributions) and role models
Esteem, efficacy, and empathy

The preschool programme is intended for families of children 2 – 5 years old. Other family members and siblings are encouraged to attend the programme and there is also involvement in the programme from community groups and schools. Although the target population is the families who have the most risk factors related to later substance abuse, previous implementations have included families with a range of risk factors with 5% of families having no risk factors. This was done deliberately to reduce stigma.

The group sessions are delivered over 10-12 weekly sessions throughout a 3- or 4-month period. Sessions are 2-hour long workshops. Parents attend group sessions which aim to support parents and carers to:

• increase parental efficacy and self-esteem
• develop stress management, decision making and reasoning skills, as well as realistic attributions for their child, child development knowledge, home management skills and the ability to provide positive role models
• develop social support systems
• develop parent strategies to help increase their child’s sense of competency internal locus of control, communication and problem-solving skills

Children attend group sessions - each week a key topic is covered with developmentally appropriate activities for all ages. The child sessions aim to help the children develop:

• cognitive skills
• mastery, social competencies, self-esteem and self-responsibility
• emotional knowledge
• problem solving, decision making, self-management and communication skills

The parent and child sessions run concurrently, and each session includes a family component, this involves family meals, social time and joint parent-child activities.

The programme encourages the involvement of community teens as peer educators and support systems in the child programme. The programme theorises that this approach helps give an empowering role to the teens in the community and connects younger children with older peers.

The programme involves Early Years teachers and day care providers through running training workshops for the staff who work with the focus child in the Early Years establishment. Workshops cover teaching strategies and activities to enhance the characteristics covered in the child group session. Workshops are provided in ongoing 2-hour sessions or condensed into a 15-hour series. Community training is also part of the programme, this involves the offer of training for up to 6 other caregivers from services in the community working with the participating families. These caregivers participate in 15-18 hours of training.

A key part of the programme is the offer of incentives for attendance, these include:

- family meals
- a supportive and non-judgemental environment that builds family strengths
- financial incentive for completion of all workshops ($200 USD for each adult family member that completes the program).

Fidelity

Dare to be You is a manualised programme. Facilitators must attend a training by an approved Dare to be You trainer. They are provided with an implementation log for each session, in which they can assess their adherence to the protocol for each activity within the session on a 3-point Likert scale. The implementation log also asks facilitators to consider their preparation and participant engagement. Delivery of the programme is seen to have acceptable fidelity if facilitators have a score of 85% according to the fidelity tool and have:

• 20 hours of workshops
• A financial incentive
• An opportunity to make up missed workshops
• A meal incentive
• Key practitioners have completed the basic educational background of a bachelor’s degree.

Modifiable Components

Activities in the programme can be adapted for diverse leaning styles and cultures. The programme has been delivered successfully with families from a range of cultural backgrounds. Replication training focuses on assisting facilitators to adapt the programme to their local ethnic group.

Dare to be You has been developed by The University of Colorado. It has been delivered in the USA but does not appear to have been implemented in the UK.

Support for Organisation/Practice

Implementation Support

A programme manual is available along with other resources such as a children’s activity book and puppet set.

No information regarding implementation supports were available.

Licence Requirements

No details regarding whether a licence is required could be found.

Start-up Costs

Training at the Dare to be You training centre costs (USD) $500 for the first person from a service and $250 for each additional person. Replication training on site can be arranged for up to 35 participants and costs $5,500 plus trainers travel and expenses. One set of manuals is included in this cost. Additional manuals and resources are extra:

Parent Training Manuals - $85 
Preschool Activity Guide - $85 
Parent /Child Activity Book - $14 
Puppet Set - $90 

Building Staff Competency

Qualifications Required

For an implementing site to be considered as an approved replication site staff attending training should have a basic educational background of a bachelors degree.

Training Requirements

Training consists of 20 hours of face to face training. The Dare to be You training centre in Colorado offers trainings twice a year. Alternatively, training can be delivered on-site to services in a replication training. No details are given regarding whether training is available outside of the USA.

Supervision Requirements

No details regarding supervision or coaching were available.

Theory of Change

Dare to be You has the primary aim of supporting parents and communities to help children develop resilience to later substance abuse. This is done through supporting parental self-efficacy, effective child rearing, developing social support and problem-solving skills. The programme is based on Ecological Systems Model, Self-Efficacy theory and Social Cognitive Development Theory. Ecological System’s Model says that, as children are part of several environments, they can all have an influence on their development and children are best served when there are strong supportive links between all the influencing environments. The programme encourages the involvement of multiple members of the family and professionals from school or community projects, to enable the shared goals in development. The parent and child sections of the programme aims to motivate parents and children to be persistent and to develop self-efficacy and self-esteem. They say that the ‘I can’ belief is essential to motivation which in turn results in family system interactions activating resilience in youth. Increasing parent competency and confidence promotes consistent and supportive child-rearing practices.

Values

Dare to be You takes a multi-agency approach to building resilience. It is a group approach for families with children age 2 -5 years old and it aims to reduce the risk factors associated with substance misuse in adolescence.

• Does this align with the key values and priorities of your organisation?

Priorities

• Is working with parents of preschool children in an early intervention approach to build resilience and reduce later substance abuse a priority for your organisation?

Existing Initiatives

• Does your service already provide early intervention programmes aiming to improve child and family resilience and reduce later substance abuse outcomes?
• Does your service have working relationships with community services and preschool establishments?
• Is there multiagency buy in with regards to delivering early interventions focused on building family resilience and reducing later substance abuse?

Workforce

Practitioners are required to have a bachelors degree to deliver the programme.

• Do you have practitioners with the pre-requisite qualification available to train?

No further details regarding workforce capacity were available.

Technology Support

No details were available regarding technology supports.

Administrative Support

No details were available regarding administrative support requirements.

Financial Support

Training onsite costs $5,500 plus trainer travel costs. Parent training manuals cost $85 each. There is no further information available regarding the ongoing cost of delivery.

• Do you have the finances to pay for programme manuals and for practitioners to attend training?

Comparable Population

Dare to be You is a programme for families with children aged 2 – 5 years old who have multiple risk factors for developing later substance misuse

• Is this an identified population of particular concern to your organisation?

The programme has been implemented with families:

- Living in urban, suburban and rural communities
- From diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds
- From areas of high deprivation, low employment rates and high drug and alcohol use in their families or social networks

• Are these populations comparable to the population you serve?

Desired Outcome

The programme aims to increase key protective factors and resilience within the family and individual and reduce the risk factors associated with substance misuse in adolescence. It has been found to be effective in increasing parental self-efficacy and self-esteem in relation to their parenting role, reducing parents use of harsh punishment and improving development and reducing oppositional behaviour in children.

• Is the increase in key protective factors and resilience within the family and individual a priority outcome for your organisation?
• Do you have other existing initiatives that would be supportive of addressing this need and achieving these outcomes?