A group of local students celebrated their graduation from the SMART Moves program on Wednesday at the El Dorado Boys and Girls Club.
The program was administered by eXtreme Youth Programs, a SHARE Foundation agency, who “taught 10 modules of the SMART Moves curriculum” to students in kindergarten through fourth grade at the Boys and Girls Club, according to a SHARE Foundation press release.
El Dorado High School juniors Ka’Niyha Dunn and Khalia Sanders and freshmen Madison Curry, Ellis Lyles and Ramya Miller acted as peer leaders along with SHARE Foundation’s Debbie Watts and Jill Weinischeke, who acted as advisers.
Weinischeke said the Boys and Girls Club of El Dorado reached out to eXtreme Youth Programs and SHARE Foundation to invite the peer leaders to teach the program, resulting in the partnership between the organizations.
The SMART acronym stands for “Skills Mastery and Resilience Training.”
Lyles, Curry and Miller each spoke during the graduation ceremony to explain the program curriculum.
“SMART Moves is a prevention and education program which addresses problems such as drug and alcohol use as well as peer pressure,” Lyles said.
The younger students attended the ceremony wearing placards with lessons from the program such as “aspirin is an example of a good medicine” and “family means love, respect and caring for each other.”
Several of the graduating students were called to the front and read their placard’s message at the end of the graduation.
“These students were engaged in discussion and role-playing, practiced resilience and refusal skills, developed assertiveness, strengthened their decision-making skills and even analyzed how the media influences kids their age to consider risky behaviors like drinking and vaping,” Miller said.
The SHARE Foundation release states that students also performed “self-awareness activities to develop respect for one’s own body, [the] ability to handle feelings and healthy habits” along with work on interaction skills, decision-making and, as seen with the placards, “age-appropriate information about alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.”
Weinischeke explained during the graduation ceremony that the peer leaders administered a test to the students before the program began to gauge their knowledge of refusal techniques and awareness of drugs and alcohol.
“We are still evaluating the post-test done last week after the tenth lesson, but we can for sure say that we are pleased with how much we feel they’ve learned and the feedback we received from the Boys and Girls Club stating that the students looked forward to us coming each week,” Weinischeke said.
Each student received a certificate marking their completion of the program at the end of the ceremony along with a snack bag.
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