Keepin' it REAL

Keepin' it REAL is a multicultural, school-based substance use prevention program for students 12-14 years old. Keepin' it REAL uses a 10-lesson curriculum taught by trained classroom teachers in 45-minute sessions over 10 weeks, with booster sessions delivered in the following school year. The curriculum is designed to help students assess the risks associated with substance abuse, enhance decisionmaking and resistance strategies, improve antidrug normative beliefs and attitudes, and reduce substance use. The narrative and performance-based curriculum draws from communication competence theory and a culturally grounded resiliency model to incorporate traditional ethnic values and practices that protect against substance use. The curriculum places special emphasis on resistance strategies represented in the acronym REAL: Refuse offers to use substances, Explain why you do not want to use substances, Avoid situations in which substances are used, and Leave situations in which substances are used.

Learn more: http://www.kir.psu.edu/research/