29 Jul 2010
Early intervention: Key to giving disadvantaged children opportunities they deserve
The government have announced an independent review of early intervention which is to be chaired by the Labour MP, and early intervention advocate, Graham Allen.
The DWP's press release says:
Early intervention can provide children with the social and emotional support needed to help fulfil their potential and break the cycles of underachievement which blight some of our poorest communities. The review will look at and recommend the best models for early intervention and advise on how these could be extended to all parts of the country. It will also consider how such schemes could be supported through innovative funding models, including through non-Government streams.
Mr Allen was the co-author, along with Iain Duncan Smith, of a paper on early intervention for the Centre for Social Justice which we covered here.
Coincidentally I...
28 Jul 2010
Alcohol licensing consultation
The Home Office have started a consultation on licensing.
They remind us of the coalition agreement which included the following points:
overhauling the Licensing Act to give local authorities and the police much stronger powers to remove licences from, or refuse to grant licences to premises that are causing problems
allowing councils and the police to permanently shut down any shop or bar that is repeatedly selling alcohol to children
doubling the maximum fine for those caught selling alcohol to minors to £20,000
allowing local councils to charge more for late-night licences, which will help pay for additional policing
banning the sale of alcohol below cost price
They say:
This consultation is looking for your views on the proposals outlined in the government's Coalition Agreement. We're...
27 Jul 2010
Preventing disruptive boys from becoming heavy substance users during adolescence
A Canadian piece of research looking at targeted prevention with disruptive boys. The researchers followed over 1,000 boys from the age of 6 until they were 15. They found:
that parental monitoring and friends’ conventionality mitigated the relationship between childhood disruptiveness and adolescence heavy substance use. Exposure to conventional friends further mediated the protective effect of parent monitoring.
Read the abstract here.
27 Jul 2010
Drug prevention programs for young people are a good investment
The Addiction journal has a short commentary on an Australian paper about school based drug prevention which argues:
Greater investment in prevention and evaluation is warranted across a broad range of areas.We believe that abstinence objectives are compatible with harm reduction policy—when implemented appropriately. To ensure benefit, abstinence-based prevention objectives must be guided by evidence for effectiveness, a caution which applies equally to harm reduction prevention policies.
The paper on which this article comments concluded:
Research has created a progressively better understanding of how to optimize programme effectiveness and what can be achieved realistically by even the most effective programmes. However, further research is required to identify which, if any, particular approach offers greater promise. The...
27 Jul 2010
Drug Misuse Declared
Last week the Home Office produced their annual analysis of the figures the British Crime Survey has about adult drug use in England and Wales, Drug Misuse Declared.
Since then we've been through the figures ourselves to look at what the report can tell us about young adults - 16 to 24 year olds - use of drugs.
As with the report on school pupil's drug used published at the same time the trends appear to be of a continuing and substantial falls in the proportions who have ever used drugs (down 8% from 1996), those who used last year (10% down from '96) and those who say they've used in the last month (7% down from '96).
But beneath the trend the sheer scale of drug use becomes clear with the report estimating that 2.7 million (41%) young adults have used illicit drugs at some point in their lives. And an estimate that over 480...
26 Jul 2010
Smoking Drinking and Drug Use 2009
The end of last week saw the publication of two of the key documents that inform us about drug use by young people in England.
In this post we'll focus on Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England in 2009 is the annual survey of over 7,500 young people across the country giving us a detailed picture of the trends in drug use by 11 to 15 year olds.
As you may have seen the headline figures are that trends are down with fewer young people saying they have taken drugs, drunk alcohol or smoked cigarettes.
The detail behind the trends reminds us that even while drug use is falling there remains no room for complacency, with 40% of pupils unable to recall a drug education lesson in the last year, and 30% of 15 year olds saying they have taken a drug at some point in the last year.
With alcohol I noticed that 25% of...
23 Jul 2010
PSHE in Schools - Ofsted
Ofsted have published their report on PSHE education in schools today, much of what they have to say is extremely positive, starting with the finding that teaching was good or outstanding in 3 in 4 schools visited, and that in those schools, where they chose to use them, external contributors were making a valuable contribution.
The report emphasises that programmes of PSHE education which link to other activities were amongst the best models, while delivery through tutorials and drop down days were less successful.
In schools that didn't provide time in the curriculum for PSHE Ofsted say:
Lack of discrete curriculum time in a quarter of the schools visited, particularly the secondary schools, meant that programmes of study were not covered in full. The areas that suffered included aspects of sex and relationships education; education...
22 Jul 2010
Naphyrone to be made Class B
The Home Office have today announced that Naphyrone will be made a Class B drug, in line with the advice they received from the ACMD.
The Minister, James Brokenshire said:
"The government is deeply concerned about the use of 'legal highs' which is why we took swift action to ban this new drug.
"There is also clear evidence that just because a substance advertised as a ‘legal’ high does not mean this is the case. Anyone buying a ‘legal high’ is putting their health at risk and could be committing a criminal offence."
What they haven't said is whether they accept the other recommendations that the ACMD made, which readers will remember included a call for a public health and education campaign.
22 Jul 2010
Web Chat with Andrew Lansley
Andrew Lansley has been having a chat with the public over on the Downing Street website this morning.
One of the questions put to him was:
Will the Govt put public health at the heart of plans & implement vital tobacco control legislation to protect children?
To which the Secretary of State says:
We need a more effective public health strategy too many things have been heading in the wrong direction, including obesity, alcohol and drug misuse and sexually transmitted infections. As we interfere less in the NHS day by day I want us to be a Government that focuses more on improving our health and wellbeing depends on working across society. Smoking is still the biggest preventable cause of early deaths. We have had important legislation to ban smoking in public places, further controls especially on under-age tobacco sales....
22 Jul 2010
The evidence for social marketing
Via email from the National Social Marketing Centre:
The NSMC is commissioning a review into the effectiveness of social marketing to effect behaviour change.
The report, which will be the first of its kind since 'Its Our health' in 2006, will systematically search the UK evidence base and synthesise the findings. As well as reviewing the published evidence, the NSMC will be contacting practitioners and agencies working within social marketing for their data on its effectiveness.
The review will take place over the next two months with a report being launched in late autumn. If you would like to take part in the review and send details of your evidence then please email info@nsmcentre.org.uk.
20 Jul 2010
Two strikes and you're out?
This paper suggests that having a two strikes and you're out policy could be a useful way for schools to approach their role in preventing drug use by students.
As usual when reading American papers there has to be a caveat that cultural differences may mean that we can't be sure that the intervention will work here in the UK. An additional caution that we are asked to bring to your attention with this paper is that it and the conclusions reached are preliminary.
Nevertheless, the findings are worth looking at.
I think it has been reasonably well understood that one of the reasons that schools have been pushed into developing school drug policies is that these help to set out the ways that they will deal with incidents in ways that don't leave the school open to challenge, are consistent, and help students to understand the...
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About this blog
This blog tries to pick up relevant media and research stories about drug education. It mainly focuses on information in England as this is the geographical remit for the Drug Education Forum. We welcome comments that are on topic.Categories
Recent Posts
- Early intervention: Key to giving disadvantaged children opportunities they deserve
- Alcohol licensing consultation
- Drug Misuse Declared
- Drug prevention programs for young people are a good investment
- Preventing disruptive boys from becoming heavy substance users during adolescence