Prevention: PEAK
Prevention: Education and Awareness for Kids (PEAK) is a series of plays and videotapes that highlight issues such as peer pressure, rejection, and self-esteem. The accompanying facilitators' manuals offer the opportunity to rehearse coping strategies with peers, teachers, and counselors.
MODULE I: THE CHOICE OF CHAMPIONS
The Choice of Champions is designed to help students learn to deal effectively with peer pressure. Narrated by Jerry Sandusky, The Second Mile's Founder and former Penn State Defensive Football Coordinator, this 19-minute program follows the struggles of a young man as he encounters peer pressure in a variety of classroom situations. Following each encounter, former Penn State athletes share the mistakes they made in dealing with peer pressure and the means by which they overcame those mistakes.
The 15-page facilitator's guide includes learning objectives, a plot summary, discussion guidelines and questions, student worksheets, and suggested follow-up activities. Through the instructional activities suggested in the manual, each student has the opportunity to attach personal meaning to the lesson, to share his/her feelings about peer pressure, and to practice different techniques to deflect negative peer pressure effectively.
To date, hundreds of school counselors have used Choice of Champions in classroom and small group settings. They have rated the program "very effective" in helping students understand the concept of peer pressure, recognize the operation of peer pressure in the characters' lives and their own, and deflect peer pressure.
MODULE II: FLOW - THE RIVER WITHIN
Flow - The River Within is designed to help students enhance their own self-esteem. Based on the work of internationally renowned research psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the program follows three students as they move from self-doubt to self-confidence through their discovery of flow. With former Penn State athletes - wrestler Kerry McCoy, basketball player Pete Lisicky, and gymnast Missy Leopoldus - as mentors and guides, these students develop their skills in identifying and engaging in activities through which they experience feelings of mastery, competence, and happiness.
The 23-page facilitator's guide includes seven different student worksheets (which may be reproduced) and two pages of suggested follow-up activities, as well as background information for the facilitator and information for parents.
As with Module I, Module II has been used by hundreds of counselors working in classroom and small group settings with third through eighth grade students, and they have rated the video and facilitator's guide as "excellent." One fifth grade student stated, "Flow activities help you appreciate you in a better way."
PLAY KIT I: NO BULLYING ALLOWED!
The No Bullying Allowed! Play Kit is a research-based, anti-bullying program designed to be used with upper elementary or middle school students. The centerpiece of the program is a short play in which a typical in-school bullying situation is confronted and challenged by students themselves. The use of a play as centerpiece, rather than a video as was offered with previous PEAK modules, is our response to a counselor survey in which school professionals wanted to try a more interactive, and non-equipment dependent, way of engaging students in addressing important issues. Thus, with this PEAK kit, students will act out a situation in which bullying occurs and to which students respond by using a variety of strategies, including organizing an anti-bullying campaign in their class.
The kit includes copies of the script; support materials for production of the play; suggested staging options for small or large groups of students; various follow-up activities for students; and materials and resources for establishing No Bullying Allowed! campaigns with small groups, classrooms, or entire schools. Additional resources for teachers or counselors include research-based information sheets about bullying, lesson plan ideas, a discussion guide based on the incidents in the play, an extensive list of additional print and on-line resources, as well as student surveys and evaluation tools.
In addition to the printed materials, the CD-ROM included with the kit contains all the components of the program. Because we wish to benefit as many children as possible, once professionals receive their kits, they have our permission to make additional copies for broader distribution.
So that The Second Mile can provide this resource to as many schools as possible, we are asking schools to reimburse the reproduction/shipping cost of fifteen dollars ($15) per kit. (If your school/district lacks the resources to do so, contact The Second Mile. Also, the kit fee is waived upon participation in a brief pre/post survey.)
To view an excerpt from the No Bullying Allowed! Play Kit script, click here. For a sample of the worksheets that accompany the play, please refer to the Sneak PEAK link on the toolbar to the left. 
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