Curriculum Features include:
- Ten 50-minute fully scripted, research-based lessons conveniently presented in a tabbed three-ring binder, making them easy to use and enjoyable to teach.
- Comprehensive planner for each lesson with clearly-stated, measurable objectives, topic rationale, and allotted activity times.
- A parent component, "Bring it Home Newsletter for Parents and Teens," to extend prevention skills and messages into the home. Home Workout activities for additional practice with parents, siblings, and caregivers at home.
- Looking for More? Each lesson includes cross-curricular lesson extenders with suggestions for infusion, recommended reading, and additional activities for reinforcing important concepts and skills.
- Assessment materials to measure student outcomes and process outcomes including implementation effectiveness and fidelity of implementation as well as student knowledge, attitudes, and behavior.
- Comprehensive Pre-Training Component covering Character Education and Normative Education concepts as well as guidance for facilitating discussions about various substance use, conflict, and peer influence topics.
- Too Good for Drugs logic model including the program’s theory of change and the proven strategies incorporated into the lessons.
- Strategies and methods to build family and school connections to reinforce the healthy social and emotional development of the students.
How does Too Good work?
Too Good for Drugs High School is a dynamic experiential course designed to immerse students in the core social skill development they need to navigate the world they will enter after high school. The experiential learning design applies interactive games and activities to let the students try on and apply the skills and strategies that are best learned through first hand application.
Ten developmentally appropriate lessons address the short and long term health and social consequences of the misuse and abuse of various legal and illegal drugs. Internal, peer, and media influences are factored into discussions and activities exploring the expectations teens have about substance use.
Students also explore these skills to help them face the challenges they can foresee and the obstacles they can’t as they work to reaching their goals.
Substance Use Prevention
Topics include:
- THC and Marijuana
- Nicotine and Tobacco
- Prescription and OTC drugs
- Stimulants
- Opioids
- Alcohol
Develops Core Character Traits
Too Good for Violence - Social Perspectives High School focuses on and mitigates the risk factors that can be positively affected in the classroom: favorable attitudes toward aggression and other problem behaviors and friends who engage in problem behavior.
Too Good builds protection within the student by:
- Establishing Positive Norms Including Healthy Beliefs and Clear Standards
- Promoting Bonding to Pro-Social Peers
- Increasing Personal and Social Skills
Builds core social and emotional learning skills
These social and emotional learning skills enhance success in the classroom and at home. These SEL skills promote self-awareness and social awareness and have been linked with school success and positive development:
- Goal Setting
- Responsible Decision Making
- Bonding with pro-social others
- Identifying and managing anger and other emotions
- Effective Communication
Understanding the Logic Model
The Mendez Foundation developed Logic Models for Too Good to map out the Theory of Change and demonstrate graphically the assumptions that drive the learning and behavior change in Too Good. The logic model communicates an "if-then" message of what changes the program intends to produce. It helps to make the connections among the target group, goals, strategies, objectives and planned program results and lays out what the program is expected to achieve and how it is expected to work.
Logic Model
Research Design
Each of the Too Good evaluation studies were conducted by third-party researchers and used randomized treatment-control group designs (pre-test/post-test, 20-week post-test, or one-year follow-up). The Researchers examined pre-test equivalence between treatment and control groups; potential bias of loss of student data over time; quality of program implementation; and estimates of reliability and validity of assessment tools.
The award-winning Too Good programs have undergone rigorous, independent evaluation studies to measure their effects on students' skills, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. Studies have been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at national evaluation conferences. These studies demonstrate the effectiveness of Too Good.
Too Good for Drugs Research Reports
2000 Summary 2000 Full Report 2001 Summary 2001 Full Report 2003 Summary 2003 Full Report
2007 Summary 2007 Full Report 2013 Summary 2013 Full Report
| Organization/Agency | TGFD K-8 | TGFV K-8 | TGFD&V High School |
|---|
| What Works Clearinghouse: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Science | Positive effects on behavior
View Report | Positive effect on behavior & knowledge, attitudes & values
View Report | Positive effect on behavior & knowledge, attitudes & values
View Report |
| CASEL: Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning | Not Yet Rated | Elementary SELect Program
View Report | Not Yet Rated |
| NREPP: National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs & Practices | Reviewed evaluation
View Report | Reviewed evaluation
View Report | Reviewed evaluation
View Report |
| CEBC: California Evidence Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare | TGFD Grade 6
Scientific Rating 2 - Supported by Evidence
View Report | Not Yet Rated | Not Yet Rated |
| OJJDP: Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention | Promising program
View Report | Exemplary program
View Report | Exemplary program
View Report |
| Promising Practices Network: Programs that Work | Screened program
View Report | Screened program
View Report | Screened program
View Report |
| SAMHSA: Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration | Model program | Model program | Model program |
Awards
Too Good programs have earned recognition and acclaim for their impact in promoting safer and healthy youth and communities.
- Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association's (FADAA) Best Practices Award
- The American Medical Association's National Congress on Adolescent Health
- The President's Child Safety Partnership
- Southeast Regional Center for Drug-Free Schools and Communities Shining Star Award
- Our programs received a high rating in "Drug Strategies"
Other Recognition
Recognition for Too Good for Drugs™ in Drug Strategies "Making the Grade": "Some very strong elements in this very detailed, 10 session per year curriculum. Provides developmentally appropriate information about alcohol, tobacco and marijuana. Normative education activities creative and compelling, new ideas for games. Includes no-use pledge."
Recognition for Too Good for Violence in Drug Strategies "Safe Schools, Safe Students": "A delightful package of materials (that) complements this highly interactive 4-9 session program. Strongly focused on critical skill areas. Extremely detailed instructions for teachers. Very complete."
