C.H.A.M.P.S.
CHAMPS (Choosing Healthy Activities and Methods Promoting Safety) is a collaborative effort by CHAMPS certified law enforcement officers, educators, students, parents, and community to offer an educational program in the classroom to prevent or reduce drug abuse and violence among children and youth. The emphasis of CHAMPS is to help students recognize and resist the many direct and subtle pressures that influence them to experiment with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, inhalants, or other drugs or to engage in violence.
The CHAMPS program offers preventive strategies to enhance those protective factors - especially bonding to the family, school, and community - which appears to foster the development of resiliency in young people who may be at risk for substance abuse or other problem behaviors. These strategies focus on the development of social competence, communication skills, self-esteem, empathy, decision making, conflict resolution, sense of purpose and independence, and positive alternative activities to drug abuse and other destructive behaviors.
