And I made her come back. Mary Busby, executive director of the Abilene Regional Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, pointed out that even adults can easily be influenced by group pressure. We still do that today. Rose said one of Hansen's key factors to prevention is normative skill training - in other words, helping children discover the behavior and thought norms for their age groups. For the first time probably in their lives, they're able to find out what the norm is among their peers.
Kids just have a real eye-opener.
Even adults skew childrens' ideas of what's really happening around them, said program coordinator Sonja Williams, who will be an instructor when All Stars begins in the fall. But the major benefit of the All Stars program is the character education, the program workers said. It goes beyond teaching kids to refuse drugs and influences how they handle every other life situation. But in and of and by itself, it's not going to carry them for the long haul. Williams said she was the most excited about the character education.