By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
What began as a pilot program at Riley Elementary School in Great Bend continues to grow. Juvenile Services' All Stars Prevention Program is now in all Barton County elementary schools except one. At Wednesday's Barton County Commission meeting, the program received a total of $6,035 from the county to continue its work. Lincoln Elementary Family Advocate Jose Arias explained the program to commissioners.
"The All Stars program, the primary goal of it is to help students prevent (risky) behaviors," he said, "which include alcohol use, tobacco use, marijuana use, opiate use, and prevent early sexual activity."
Arias said the program will pick up at Lincoln Elementary in Great Bend when school resumes in January, and run through the end of April. Both sixth-grade classes participate in the program once a week for 45 minutes. Prior to participating, parents must first sign a permission form, and parents also review the questions asked in a pre and post-program survey.
Juvenile Services Director Marissa Woodmansee said the All Stars Program should be in all Barton County elementary schools by next year. The program was helped by $3,035 from the Special Alcohol Fund, which will be matched by a CDC Drug-Free Communities Grant. The county allocated another $3,000 from the general fund to the program.
"What this will allow us to do is continued training, continued incentives and celebrations, materials such as the workbooks and whatnot they do," Woodmansee said. "And just trying to break over into the next school system - giving them some assistance in that as well. They're going to need training, they're going to need the materials, they're going to need all of that."
The pilot program was first offered at Riley Elementary as an extension of the DARE Program offered to fifth graders. Arias estimates more than 95 percent of Lincoln Elementary sixth graders currently participate.