The Butler County Sheriff's Department is taking measures to keep kids off drugs amid the county's opioid epidemic.

Last year, 74 people died due to drug overdoses in Butler County; this year, there have been 44 confirmed fatal overdoses.

The sheriff's department is part of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) America, which is aimed at educating youths about drugs and alcohol.

The officers are hoping to have an impact in the county amid rampant drug use.

Gene Troyan, director of operations for Butler Ambulance Service, noted that overdoses have been on the rise since the beginning of 2016.

He estimated that Butler County averages one drug overdose — either nonfatal or fatal — per day.

Locally, officers teach a program called “Keepin' It REAL (Refuse, Explain, Avoid and Leave).”

“We talk very little about drugs,” he said. “We talk more about making good decisions, good life skills, being responsible, identifying peer pressures and how to respond to those peer pressures.”

D.A.R.E. officers teach the “Five W's” — who, what, when, where and why, for children to have on hand when they report bullying or something else negative happening in their lives.

D.A.R.E. is taught to 1,500 fifth grade students across the county. They go to every district in the county except Seneca Valley.

The county has three full-time D.A.R.E. officers and will add a part-time officer this fall. Each year they go to elementary schools and teach a 10-lesson course, with one lesson per week.

“Prevention is a big deal,” Sgt. Harry Callithen said. “The people that are already in (addiction), that is such a huge, huge process to get someone to be well.”

Children are shown videos of situations, and they break into small groups to discuss what they've seen and how they would handle it.

“I think it's doing well, even though sometimes it's hard to measure those things,” he said.

Jamie Christy, of Butler is in recovery from opiate addiction. She spent years going to schools with Pat Cannon, the former head of the Butler County Drug Task Force.

Christy told students about her experience to help them understand the negative impact drugs can have on a life. She said that fifth grade students were the group that paid the most attention to her stories of addiction and homelessness.

“By the time you get to sixth grade, they're all to that age where they're trying to impress people and figure out who they are,” Christy said. “Fifth graders were the most receptive group that I've ever spoken to.”

Christy also expressed concern about how much any early-intervention program could do, because addiction is a disease.

“The one side of me says nothing is going to change it, because it's genetic,” she said.

Callithen said that despite D.A.R.E. officers' best efforts, factors such as peer pressure mean they can't prevent all youths from trying drugs.

“Some people are going to do it no matter what you say,” he said.