PHILLIPS – A program on Stranger Awareness Family Education was presented to Margaret Huff’s kindergarten class this week at the Phillips Elementary School.

University of Maine at Farmington students Elle Knight and Katriel Ramu have spent the semester planning the program as part of their community health course.

Using role-playing, videos and lessons on personal space, the couple have presented a lesson each day to the class with a celebration on Friday when the students were given certificates and T-shirts.

After one of her cousins went missing 20 years ago, Knight said, she is sensitive to the problem of missing children. The U.S. Department of Justice statistics indicate that nationwide an average of 2,100 children are reported missing.

In Maine there have been only four children reported missing in the last 40 years, one of whom, Douglas Chapman, was her cousin, she said. The SAFE program is dedicated to his memory and she suggests that more information may be found on the program at www.thesafeside.com.

The program uses a state-of-the-art curriculum with an interactive DVD, “Stranger Safety: The Safe Side,” developed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The DVDs were sent home to parents, she said, to allow them to view it with their children.

The curriculum used with the students, she said, focuses on Safe Side Adults, Don’t Knows and Kinda Knows. Safe side adults are those a child can always trust and feel safe with; Don’t Knows are people the child never met before, and Kinda Knows are people the child may have seen before but don’t know well.

Success of the program, she said, was measured by questions she asked the children on Monday and repeated again Friday. Their answers indicated more awareness of others as well as their own personal space.