CHAMPS, Choosing Healthy Activities and Methods Promoting Safety, is a program that targets 5th graders.
It was developed to provide guidance and the skills, ability and knowledge to be safe, healthy, and happy, in preparation for a successful life.
What Sheriff Griffin does not tell anyone is the program was developed in Decatur County under his guidance. It was then adopted by the Georgia Sheriffs Assn. for the whole state of Georgia.
The fifth graders in all of the Decatur County Schools and Grace Christian Academy will all be CHAMPS before the school year is out. In the first half of the year, Potter Street, Jones Wheat, Grace Christian and West Bainbridge Elementary received the CHAMPS class.
Once each week a Sheriff's Deputy, who has completed the CHAMPS instructor training, spends about forty-five minutes with each of the 5th grade classes at a school.
Lesson plans include:
Alcohol, ATV Safety, Boating Safety,Bullying, CHAMPS Project (Essay / Poster Contest), Choices & Consequences,Cocaine,Gangs, Graduation Stress, Home Alone and Child Abduction Safety, Hunter Safety, Inhalants, Internet Safety, Introduction & Pre-Test, Leaders & Followers, Marijuana, Methamphetamine, Peer Pressure, Positive Alternatives, Review & Post-Test, Tobacco and Understanding & Avoiding Violent Behavior.
Because of the design of the program, the deputies are able to choose which of the lessons are relative to the area. At the end of each semester, the students that have graduated from the program are given questionnaires that help in future lesson planning.
The CHAMPS program began in the state in 2004 when 5 counties first implemented the pilot program into their school curriculum with Decatur County being one of them. Decatur County Sheriff Wiley Griffin and then Decatur County Sergeant Brent Loeffler, Georgia Sheriff's Association's Tonia Welch and others, spent many hours devoted to the development of this program.
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| Maj. Morris, Jones Wheat CHAMPS Student of the Year: Jose Masias and Lt. Rick Ashley, CHAMPS instructor for Jones Wheat |
At the end of the semester, each of the students that has completed the course receives a certificate. There are also awards for each class for the best essay and art project. The winners of those each receive a plaque. A certificate is also awarded to the most positive student in each class.
One student from each school is chosen as the CHAMPS Outstanding Student of the Year. This year two teachers from each school will also be recognized; one for the 'Most Positive' and one as the 'Most Valuable'.
Jones Wheat had their ceremony on Monday, December 11th. West Bainbridge Elementary will be on Tuesday, December 12th at 1:00 pm, Potter Street Elementary on Wednesday December 13th at 10:15 and Grace Christian on Thursday December 14th. at 10:00 am.
This year the classes are being taught by Lt. Rick Ashley and Deputy Jason Williams. Deputies Bennett and Cox are training to be instructors for next year to bring the number of deputies that can teach the program to four.
The goal of the Georgia Sheriff's Association is to have the program available to all the 5th graders in the state and eventually in the middle schools.
