Lincoln Police Department Hosts Second Annual D.A.R.E. Officer Training

 

[March 04, 2022] 

During the weeks of February 14th through February 25th, 2022, the Lincoln Police Department hosted its Second Annual D.A.R.E. Officer Training Program. The Department supports this program and its efforts to assist youths with sound judgement and decision making, including but not limited to resisting drug and alcohol abuse.

Currently, the Lincoln Police Department employs four certified D.A.R.E. Officers. The most senior D.A.R.E. Officer, Christy Fruge, also serves the D.A.R.E. America program as the Illinois D.A.R.E. Officer Coordinator. Officer Fruge is tasked with many responsibilities through this assignment, encompassing the entire State of Illinois. With Officer Fruge’s selection as the D.A.R.E. Officer Coordinator, Lincoln became the training hub for the D.A.R.E. program statewide.

During the 1st annual D.A.R.E. Officer Training program last year, 18 Officers came from all over the United States to attend the two week training program in Lincoln. This included Tribal Police Officers and Military Police Officers from as far away as California.

This year, the D.A.R.E. Officer Training program saw 16 Officers attend including Officers from Central Illinois as well as Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kansas and Alaska. During their two week stay, these Officers become a part of the Lincoln community. They stay with us in our hotels, shop at our stores and patronize our businesses and restaurants. As a final benchmark in the training program, these Officers teach a course of instruction at one of our local schools. Area schools that participated this year were Washington-Monroe, Northwest, Central and West Lincoln-Broadwell.

D.A.R.E. has curriculums designed for children as young as kindergarten, going all the way through to high school years. The D.A.R.E. program studies trends which allow Officers to adjust to specific problems within their communities. For example, when opioids became a problem across the United States, D.A.R.E. America created a curriculum specifically for that issue.

D.A.R.E. still uses the opioid curriculum, but also utilizes others such as a vaping curriculum along with a curriculum called More Than Sad, which helps young people who are dealing with suicidal thoughts.

Every curriculum D.A.R.E. offers is science and evidence based to be effective. Recently a study was conducted over 3 years by UNC on how effective the D.A.R.E. program was.

The training staff, which assists Officer Fruge with instructing the new D.A.R.E. Officer candidates, consists of two Mentors (team leaders) from Addison, Illinois Police Department, one from St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department, and an educator from Iowa.

The role of the educator is to teach the D.A.R.E. Officer candidates to step out of "investigation mode" and into a teaching mode. The goal is to transfer the minds of the Officers from interrogation to communication. This is not an easy process, and it takes time and practice. Much is asked of these officers. They must meet certain benchmarks in order to move forward in the class. If those benchmarks are not met, officer are "deselected" from the program. Only officers that are the best fit for a classroom become D.A.R.E. Officers.

The Lincoln Police Department is proud of its D.A.R.E Officers and of the strides the D.A.R.E. Program is taking to positively affect the lives of the children in our communities not only in Illinois, but nationwide.

[Text provided by Susie Pegram
Administration Assistant to the Chief of Police]