FY 2008 G.R.E.A.T. Program

The Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) program is a life-skills competency program designed to provide students with the skills they need to avoid gang pressure and youth violence. G.R.E.A.T.'s violence prevention curricula help students develop values and practice behaviors that will help them avoid destructive activities. G.R.E.A.T. program staff coordinate project activities with federal, regional, state, and local agencies, as well as individuals from community and civic groups. The goal of the program is to train criminal justice professionals to deliver a school-based curriculum that teaches life-skills competencies, gang awareness, and violence-avoidance techniques.

The Merced Police Department plans to implement the middle school, summer, and families components of the G.R.E.A.T. program for the 2008-2009 school years. The middle school component will be offered in four middle schools to approximately 1,200 sixth grade students. The middle school component will run for 13 weeks and will be administered one hour each week.

The summer component will be administered to approximately 80 students who have been identified by G.R.E.A.T. officers as being high-risk youth. The violence prevention curriculum for the summer component will be administered four hours per day, four days per week for a total of five weeks. This life skills program will teach youth how to avoid gang pressure and youth violence, and encourage positive relationships between youth and law enforcement, their parents, schools, and community. The summer component will also use guest speakers and career development-oriented field trips to reinforce leadership, goal setting, and career development skills taught during the school year.

The families component will be administered in four sessions to ten families. Two of the families sessions will be conducted at the local Boys and Girls Club and the other two will be conducted at local middle schools. One aspect of the program will focus on showing parts of violent movies and displaying live game play on a projector screen to demonstrate to parents the type of violence found in video games to help them understand the importance of being more involved in the activities of their children. It is hoped that parents participating in the families component will be motivated to take more initiative in monitoring their children's activities.

CA/NCF