Not Your Average Drug Education Program
Schools today face competing demands—from teacher shortages and shifting academic standards to concerns about student safety and substance use. Implementing an effective drug education program can feel overwhelming while balancing parent expectations and limited staff capacity.
Drug prevention is important and necessary, but teachers must prioritize student achievement and planning time. Who has the bandwidth to facilitate a program? How do you gain buy-in from both parents and students?
Reality Tour® is a community-based, school-supported prevention program that removes the burden from educators. We educate students and engage parents through a proven model that addresses the full spectrum of substance use and real-world risks.
Community organizations fund and implement the program using a structured approach that activates all 12 Sectors of the Community. We also guide the introduction of Reality Tour® at no cost to determine if it is the right fit.
Schools partner by designating one or more grade levels for the Reality Tour® experience and encouraging parent participation.
Drug Trend Alert
Schools concerned about developing drug trends and the possibility of an overdose/poisoning on campus can view our training to learn how to meet today's challenges and keep students safe. This training will open new opportunities in prevention at a very critical time.
What Is the Reality Tour Drug Education Experience?
Reality Tour is a community based drug prevention system designed to educate parent and child about substance abuse. It’s appropriate for middle and high school students ages 10-17 and their parents/guardians.
What Will Students and Parents Experience?
- Engaging dramatic scenes that show the consequences of one youth’s choices
- Families are provided coping skills to avoid drug experimentation. These tips are easy to incorporate into their daily life
- Q&A and real talk from law enforcement and individuals in recovery
Why Should Schools Partner with Reality Tour?
Bring Reality Tour to Your School District
Schools can encourage community organizations, such as your health department, Chamber of Commerce, youth groups, faith-based groups or services clubs (e.g. Lions, Soroptimist, Kiwanis or Rotary Club), to purchase and present Reality Tour for your community.
Here’s how to get started:
- Download our Reality Tour Planner to review how to work with stakeholders to present the concept for consideration and partnership. This tool even helps you determine your stakeholders in a manner of minutes! The Planner download is available by filling out the form below.
- For schools that want to help parents take the conversation home, download our Parent/Child Prevention Checklist.
Review the Reality Tour Planner then...
- Contact us to answer questions and help determine readiness.
- Collaborate with us to identify community partners using the Planner.
- Work with your community organization(s) to find volunteers.
- Contact us to connect with schools that have been partners for years.
Reality Tour Drug Education Program Outcomes
Survey: Parents 90 days after attending Reality Tour
Survey: Youth 90 days after attending Reality Tour
FAQs
Reality Tour is a community-based drug prevention system designed as a single event to engage parents, but it’s also a vehicle that networks community resources to enhance prevention on multi-levels. Held in the evening or weekend so parents WILL attend, the system puts parent and child on the same page. Reality Tour® is not scare tactics, per our University of Pittsburgh researcher’s documentation. A needs assessment survey of parents in 2002 revealed their desire for prevention programs to include the possible, ultimate consequences of experimentation.
Reality Tour is delivered in 3 parts:
1. The Consequences
- Narrated scenes of life
- Emotional learning for lasting recall
- Appropriate for youth ages 10-17 with a parent
2. The Coping Skills
- Recognize 1st signs of use
- Personal goals for drug prevention developed
- Refusal skills engagement
- Home prevention launch materials
- Enduring impact on teen brain
3. The Interviews
- Law officer relates local trends
- Youth in recovery de-glamourizes use
School partnerships create a renewable audience. Schools can decide which grade levels they most want to attend the program. For example, a large school chose 6th grade as their grade of emphasis. Homerooms were ‘assigned’ to each of the upcoming dates for Reality Tour. During the year, teachers reminded their students that ‘their date’ was coming up and urged them to have their parents register. Older siblings were also welcomed at the program as was the general public.
The cost for the license the program model is an affordable $3,500 with an annual renewal fee of $500. CANDLE, Inc. can help you partner with other community organizations to help raise money for the license.
The cost to purchase the Reality Tour Program Model and license is an affordable $3,500 with an annual renewal fee of $500.
Reality Tour is replicated in several states. Venues vary per Tour, some are held at churches, township buildings, courthouses, municipal centers and schools. Review our location page to see where the various sites are and learn if you will be the first in your area to offer Reality Tour.
Reality Tour runs approximately 2 hours. It is most often held in the evenings or on a weekend so parents can attend.
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About the Author
Norma Norris is the founder of CANDLE, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping families and communities prevent youth substance use through education and early intervention. With more than 20 years of prevention experience, she developed the nationally recognized Reality Tour program and other educational initiatives designed to help families understand the real risks of substance use before experimentation begins.
Recognizing early that parents needed clearer guidance to navigate today’s rapidly changing substance use environment, Norris created prevention programs that educate both parents and youth together. Her work focuses on closing the gap between what parents believe is happening in their child’s world and the realities teens face today.
She developed a replicable prevention model designed to help schools and communities educate families about the developing teen brain, peer pressure, and decision-making before experimentation is even considered. This approach equips parents with practical tools to start meaningful conversations and guide their children safely through adolescence. On this website there is abundant information on how to get the volunteer-driven Reality Tour started in your community.
Through school partnerships, community programs, and online learning, Norris’s prevention work has helped thousands of families better understand today’s risks and the powerful role parents play as one of the most important protective factors in preventing teen substance use. Her work continues to serve as a trusted prevention education resource for families, schools, and communities seeking practical guidance in navigating today’s environment.