MADD Tennessee is proud to have a grant from the Governor's Highway Safety Office to train teachers and counselors to implement this research-based curriculum in
classrooms throughout Tennessee.If you are interested in finding out about upcoming training dates or learning how to schedule a training in your area, please e-mail Sonya Manfred at manfred@maddtn.org.

Program Overview
The National Elementary School Project is MADD's latest nationwide effort to prevent alcohol use by youth. The curriculum, "Protecting You / Protecting Me," is an important first step in the project.

Development of the curriculum is designed to help reach children before they have fully shaped their attitudes and opinion about alcohol use by youth and their role in preventing it.
Download PY/PM fact sheet (1.4 MB)

Research shows that the risk for alcohol and other drug use skyrockets when children enter the sixth grade, between the ages of 12 and 13. To be effective in preventing alcohol use by teenagers, we must reach out to and educate children in Grades 1 through 5.

PY/PM Named as Model Program
This identifies 'Protecting You/Protecting Me' as an effective science-based prevention program with "consistent, positive and replicable results." A Model Program is the highest level of endorsement provided by CSAP. The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention has reviewed over 650 programs that have applied to be Model Programs in the last four years; only 41 of those have been accepted. View SAMHSA's 'Model Program' fact sheet on PY/PM. (PDF)

Curriculum
The curriculum provides a series of 42 classroom-based lessons, eight lessons for each Grade 1 through 4, and 10 lessons for Grade 5. The lessons are designed to be taught in schools by teachers, volunteers, or high school students enrolled in a structured mentoring or leadership class. 

Materials are provided to inform parents and guardians about the risks associated with underage use of alcohol and give them resources to assist children in remaining abstinent, protect them from riding with alcohol-impaired drivers, and prevent poisoning from medications and household products containing alcohol. 
 
Project Goals

Prevent the injury and death of children and youth due to:

• Underage Consumption of alcoholic beverages.
• Vehicle-related risks, especially as passengers in vehicles in which the driver is alcohol-impaired.

Supplement existing prevention curricula by providing information to students in grades one through five and their parents on:

• The importance of protecting the brains of persons under 21 years of age from the biological effects of alcohol.
• Ways to help children avoid the risks associated with riding with drivers who are alcohol-impaired.
  

Curriculum Philosophy -- Zero Tolerance
The curriculum takes the stand of "zero tolerance" for the use of any illegal drug, illegal use of alcoholic beverages by persons under 21 years of age, and any misuse or high-risk use of medications and household products containing alcohol. 

Theoretical Base -- Resiliency and Protective Factors
The curriculum is based on three complementary and reinforcing mechanisms: risk reduction, resiliency and protective factors, and developmental assets. Programs based on these theories are found to be highly effective in reducing risks for substance abuse and increasing the protective factors that mitigate, reduce, or eliminate risks associated with substance abuse.

Related Documents
 Curriculum Introduction (PDF)
 Information Packet (PDF) 
 Pricing Information (PDF)
 '5 Rules for Safe Riding' Poster (PDF)
 Curriculum Samples (PDF)
 Scope & Sequence (PDF)

Links
 New PYPM.org site!
 SAMHSA Model Program information