Strategy

Dare to be You (DTBY)

What is it?

Dare to be You (DTBY) is a two-generation prevention program for high-risk families with children ages two through five. The program focuses on improving parenting strategies and children’s self-efficacy, stress-management, and decision-making skills to lower children’s risk of high risk behaviors. DTBY consists of educational activities for children, strategies for parents and teachers, and environmental structures that enable skill-building. 

What is the evidence base?

Parents in DTBY demonstrate increases in parent self-esteem, decision-making skills, stress management, and child development knowledge and decreases in uses of harsh discipline practices. Children in DTBY exhibit increases in development and age-appropriate behaviors and decreases in difficult behaviors. 

• Miller-Heyl et al_1998_DARE to be You A Family-Support, Early Prevention Program: A randomized trial of 794 families in successive cohorts over a five year period