Currently showing all entries from "June 2010".
30 Jun 2010
Cards for Little Lives
The NCB have produced a set of PSHE resources for primary school aged children.
They say:
‘Cards for Little Lives’ is a unique resource for adults to use with primary children to discuss familiar dilemmas and moral questions in a safe and creative way as part of personal, social and health education (PSHE).
Framed by the five Every Child Matters outcomes, the cards are presented as powerpoint slides to facilitate use in classrooms with interactive whiteboard technology. Blank slides are provided to allow teachers to build cards that meet their own children’s needs.
You can download the slides from here.
28 Jun 2010
Cocaethylene
I know that some readers found the films that Oxfordshire DAAT did on Mephedrone and Ketamine useful.
They've now gone on to produce a third, this time looking at what happens when alcohol and cocaine are mixed together.
25 Jun 2010
Social Norms Guidebook
The European Social Norms Repository have produced a guide for implementing social norms in the UK.
They say:
Social norms interventions offer a new evidence based approach to changing behaviour. One of the appeals of the approach is that it is based on a straightforward and simple premise. As with any type of behaviour change strategy, the application of the approach to real life settings requires careful planning and an understanding of the principles involved. This guidebook has been written to provide those interested in the approach with support on how to apply the approach and how to address some of the commonly encountered challenges. The information contained within the guide is based on the experiences of social norms practitioners.
Download the guide here.
25 Jun 2010
World Drug Report 2010
This year's World Drug Report from the UNODC has a couple of quotes that may be of interest:
Prevention and treatment can work. The significant decline in cocaine use in the United States over the last three decades can be linked, inter alia, to increased spending on prevention and treatment. However, not all prevention efforts are effective. Simplistic interventions can generate an interest in drugs and can lead to even higher use levels. [page 93]...evidence-based prevention and treatment have shown some cost-effective results. Both measures work best when implemented in a holistic, comprehensive manner and when accompanied by the early identification of emerging developments. [page 119]
25 Jun 2010
Young people’s alcohol consumption and its relationship to other outcomes and behaviour
The DfE have published a report from National Centre for Social Research which looks at alcohol and young people.
Readers of this blog may remember that at one of our recent seminars we had their Research Director Andreas Cebulla talking about the relationship between the social activities that young people take part in and risky behaviours.
Some of those findings are replicated here, but there is also new material.
So the report says that girls are more likely to drink than boys and:
that white young people and those who were not religious were much more likely to drink, and more likely to drink frequently. Somewhat surprisingly, we found a strong link between being bullied and frequent drinking, which bears further investigation.
They also say that pupils are more likely to drink where there are a higher proportion of pupils...
25 Jun 2010
Research in Brief
The social context of drunkenness in mid-adolescence
Research from Iceland looking at what might be influencing drunkenness amongst young people. The study was carried out using a questionnaire with students in Year 9 and 10 (average age 14.7 years). 30% said they had been drunk in the last month.
The researchers say:
The strongest predictors of drunkenness were drunkenness among friends and friends’ acceptance of drinking.
Abstract here.
A telephone survey of parental attitudes and behaviours regarding teenage drinking.
Irish research looking at the attitudes and behaviours of parents towards their children's drinking.
The researchers spoke to 234 parents and say:
Six per cent reported that they would be unconcerned if their son or daughter was to binge drink once per month. On the issue of introducing children...
22 Jun 2010
JRF - Drugs Research: An overview of evidence and questions for policy
The JRF have a report looking back over the research they've commissioned since they started looking at drug issues back in 2001.
Here are some quotes that caught the eye.
Young people and cannabis use:
young people also referred to the impact of cannabis on their school performance either through spending too much time out of school smoking cannabis or through being ‘stoned’ in class... [page 16]
Cannabis use in school:
the actual use of cannabis on school premises seems a particularly worrying issue. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the research undertaken by Melrose et al. (2007) suggests that being ‘stoned’ in the classroom may not equate with academic success. This is a difficult problem to deal with – as some of the disciplinary responses, such as exclusion, may be more damaging than the cannabis use...
21 Jun 2010
Advocacy for Prevention Science
My thanks to Eric for bringing this paper from the Society of Prevention Research to my attention.
In five pages (including references) the paper tries to make the case for prevention.
They say:
Research has demonstrated that some preventive interventions can be effective for reducing problems of health and human behavior. This research has reached a point where we can identify categories of preventive interventions that have demonstrated their efficacy to prevent multiple problem outcomes which are of high cost and high concern to our society.
Download the document here.
18 Jun 2010
"These drug education films inspired me"
The Guardian:
I started secondary school and began using speed. We were shown all these drug education films and they 'inspired' me and my friends to find and try every drug we could. All these films were about drug use in London. Once we watched this film about smoking dope and it was filmed down All Saint's Road, which was just round the corner from where we lived.
We thought: "Right, let's try everything we can", which wasn't helped by the fact that a friend's parents were cocaine dealers.
Thankfully this account of drug education is from the early 1980s, but it's a useful reminder that resources need very careful consideration, and then evaluation.
Its also worth thinking about whether the resource is going to be viewed the same way by everyone that sees it.
18 Jun 2010
Seven strategies to affect community change
I've been looking at this document produced by CADCA, the US organisation that supports community based drug prevention. They have a page on creating the conditions for communities wanting to change their circumstances.
They give a seven point approach:
Provide information — through a variety of means including community meetings, presentations about local data, billboards and other advertising.
Enhance skills — with workshops and seminars which focus on increasing the skills of both members of a potential coalition and staff
Provide support — that focuses on reducing risk or enhancing protective factors.
Enhance access/reduce barriers — make it easier to access services (e.g. treatment services, childcare, transport, housing etc.), remember to be culturally sensitive.
...
18 Jun 2010
The Steer Approach - Understanding Behaviour Change Beyond Nudge
The RSA through their Social Brain Project have produced what looks to be a very interesting report trying to look at ways to provoke behaviour change.
They seem to suggest that we need to have a broader strategy which compliments the 'nudge' approach that has captured a lot of public discussion on the subject in the last few years.
They say the research findings from the project were:
Our deliberative and qualitative research suggests that when people are informed about how their brains and behaviours work, they find this information interesting, useful in tackling immediate dilemmas and helpful for reflecting on the areas of their lives that they have found most problematic over time (e.g. quitting smoking).
People find learning about how habitual behaviour works the most useful element....
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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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