Currently showing all entries from "April 2010".
30 Apr 2010
Limited Impacts in Seven-Nation European Drug Education Trial
Mike Ashton takes a look at the 15 month follow up from the EU-DAP drug prevention curriculum, Unplugged.
Mike acknowledges there does appear to be some effect from the programme, but he argues it has been limited and could be down to sample bias.
He says:
It seems probable that Unplugged was indeed preferable to doing nothing very much specifically to prevent substance use. However, if this was the case, the benefits were quite limited; the most which can be said so far is that among the possibly unrepresentative subset of pupils included in the final follow-up, it reduced drunkenness, was not shown to have reduced smoking or cannabis use, but may have done so.
You can read the full analysis here.
27 Apr 2010
Research in Brief
There are a number of research papers that have come to my attention that may be of interest to readers.
Childhood Sleep Problems, Response Inhibition, and Alcohol and Drug Outcomes in Adolescence and Young Adulthood
A paper looking at whether sleep problems in childhood are a predictor of alcohol and drug issues in adolescence found that it appears to be.
The researchers found:
When compared to their counterparts, those with trouble sleeping in childhood were twice as likely to have the same problem in adolescence. Childhood overtiredness predicted poor response inhibition in adolescence. Persistent trouble sleeping from childhood to adolescence and response inhibition in adolescence mediated the relationship between childhood sleep problems and drug outcomes in young adulthood, whereas overtiredness in childhood directly predicted...
27 Apr 2010
Alcohol Use by Youth and Adolescents: A Pediatric Concern
The journal Pediatrics carries an editorial from their Committee on Substance Misuse which argues that doctors that specialise in this field should play a larger role in preventing harm from alcohol. The article makes a series of recommendations to paediatricians that I'll reproduce here.
Pediatricians and other health care providers who work with children and adolescents are recommended to:
Become knowledgeable about all aspects of adolescent alcohol, tobacco, and other substance use through participation in training program curricula and/or continuing medical education that provide current best-practices training, including media-literacy training.
Obtain a complete family medical and social history at prenatal and health supervision visits to...
27 Apr 2010
Cocaethylene briefing paper released
The Alcohol Education Research Council have a new briefing paper out as part of their Alcohol Academy. It looks at the issues around using cocaine with alcohol.
They say:
The briefing identifies that combined alcohol and cocaine use appears to be increasingly popular despite indications of significantly increased health and social risks. Combining alcohol and powder cocaine can form cocaethylene in the liver, a unique metabolite that can enhance the user's experience but significantly increase the risk of heart attack or sudden death. Its use has also been linked to other conditions and an increased risk of violence.
23 Apr 2010
Teachers TV - Drug Guidance
Yesterday I did a short interview for Teachers TV about the forthcoming drug guidance for schools.
22 Apr 2010
The Influence of Sports Stars
Researchers from the UK and Australia have been looking at the influence that reporting about sports stars drinking has on young people's behaviour.
The paper is published in Drug and Alcohol Review but in their press release the researchers say:
“Our research shows that young people, both sporting participants and non-sporting participants, don’t appear to be influenced by the drinking habits of high-profile sportspeople as depicted in the mass media.”
In fact they go on to say that non-sporting young people drank less if they thought sports stars drank more, and otherwise drinking behaviour was:
strongly related to the overestimation of their friends’ drinking and, in sportspeople only, to sport-specific cultural habits, such as the drinking with competitors after games.
Which seems to make the...
22 Apr 2010
EU citizen's attitudes towards alcohol
The European Commission have published some research into public attitudes to drinking. In the chapter on protecting young people they say:
EU citizens' support for measures to protect young people was assessed with questions focussed on banning selling and serving alcoholic beverages to persons under 18 years and banning alcohol advertising targeted to them. The protection of children and young people is the first priority theme identified in the EU Alcohol Strategy and higher age limits as well as controls on the advertising of alcoholic beverages have been highlighted as good practices since the turn of the millennium.
The report goes on to talk about some of the results of their survey work.
The map below shows the extent to which people think that there should be a ban on selling and serving alcohol to those under 18.
The same...
21 Apr 2010
Seminar on Supporting School Drug Education - 4 June 2010
The Drug Education Forum is pleased to announce that we are organising another of our very popular seminars exploring contemporary issues for drug education and prevention.
This time the focus will be on supporting schools and the role of external bodies and individuals in delivering drug education.
Download the flier here.
The event will take place on the afternoon of Friday 4 June and will be held in Manchester.
Confirmed speakers include:
Dr Harry Sumnall, Reader in Substance Use, Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University
Dr Jeremy Segrott and Heather Rothwell, Cardiff School of Social Sciences
Jan Forshaw, Education Services Director, Coram Life Education
The seminar will look at the evidence around ex-users delivering drug education, working with schools to engage parents, developing...
21 Apr 2010
PSHE Association Forthcoming Events
Via email:
PSHE Association Annual Conference 2010 This conference will provide an excellent opportunity for PSHE coordinators and subject leaders to gain an understanding of the latest developments in PSHE education. Given the failure of the Children, Schools and Families Bill to make PSHE education statutory, it is important for all PSHE practitioners to consider how they can present high quality provision to their school. This event will also equip delegates with strategies to quality assure provision and improve rigor in teaching and learning, especially in relation to assessment and progression in PSHE education.
Date: 24 June 2010
Location: Glaziers Hall, 9 Montague Close London, SE1 9DD
Cost: PSHE Association members - £170 / Non-members - £190
Book at: http://www.pshe-association.org.uk/events_detail.aspx?id=84...
21 Apr 2010
ASA Clears Why Let Drink Decide
The ASA received 27 complaints about the Why Let Drink Decide advert you can see above.
The complainants were concerned about children discussing adult themes and as to whether children would be distressed if they saw it.
The ASA say:
The ASA acknowledged some viewers were concerned by the ads because they showed children discussing adult topics. We noted however the ads were intended to encourage parents, who were the target audience, to consider the scenarios that could arise when their children were older as well as the importance of discussing those formative experiences in a family setting. We considered adult viewers were likely to understand the seriousness of the message the ads presented and to recognise the need to consider issues related to families, young people and irresponsible alcohol consumption. Although we...
16 Apr 2010
“A generation of disengaged children is waiting in the wings…”
Demos, in a pamphlet about developing better engagement in education for those most at risk, sets out the risky behaviours that young people engage in:
England and the UK have notoriously high rates of young people engaging in unsafe risky behaviours. One in three 13 and 15-year-olds have been drunk at least twice, the highest rate of underage drunkenness in the OECD. The UK also reports the fourth highest rate of teenage pregnancy (after Mexico, Turkey and the USA). Furthermore, just under 10 per cent of 15-year-olds in the UK had used cannabis in the last 30 days prior to responding to the survey. New data shows that young people from poor families are more likely to smoke frequently than their more affluent peers: 6 per cent of 14-yearolds from the poorest fifth of households said they smoked frequently, compared to 1 per cent of...
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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
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