Drug Education Review

Drug & Alcohol Education Review

Andrew BrownDrug Education Forum

2www.drugeducationforum.com



• 14 recommendations to government on future of drug and alcohol education in England.

• Review of evidence.• 2 surveys

– Parents– Professionals (teachers and

other school staff, DAAT co-ordinators, independent providers etc.)


Recommendations

• Aims of drug education• Support for parents• School based education• FE and other settings• Young people at risk• Research

www.drugeducationforum.com 6

The Aims of Drug and Alcohol Education

Review• Promote a wider

understanding of the aims of drug and alcohol education

• Focus universal education and information on sustaining the choices of the majority of young people who do not take illegal drugs

Government• provide funding support to

the Drug Education Forum and the Drug Education Practitioners Forum

• revise the guidance for schools, FE Colleges, the non-formal sector and wider children’s services on drug and alcohol education and information


Equipping Parents and Carers to Protect their Children

Review

• Increase parents’ and carers’ knowledge and skills about drug and alcohol education and prevention.

Government

• A clear expectation that parents are informed about the timing and content of drug and alcohol education, giving parents clear information about how they can best support messages about drugs and alcohol


Government• Review the information on

drug and alcohol awareness within the Transition Information toolkit.

• The Parents’ Partnership will act as representatives of parents and carers to advise Government regarding substance misuse.

• Parents will be a key target audience for the FRANK campaign going forward.


The Quality of Drug and AlcoholEducation in Schools

Review• Making Personal, Social and

Health Education (PSHE) a statutory subject in schools, placing a duty on schools to adhere to guidance about drug and alcohol education – enabling schools to meet their statutory responsibility to promote well-being effectively;

Government• Make PSHE statutory• Establish an independent

review of how the decision to give PSHE statutory status can be translated into a practicable way forward


• Improving teachers’ skills and confidence in delivering effective drug and alcohol education by exploring a specialist PSHE training route through initial teacher training and improving the quality of, and access to, continued professional development for PSHE teachers; and

• Create a route through Initial Teacher Training for teachers to specialise in PSHE

• Maximise the level of participation in the existing national PSHE Continued Professional Development programme.


• Making drug education central to the new well-being agenda, the well-being indicators and forthcoming guidance; and through amending the Ofsted inspection framework to make explicit a requirement to consider the contribution of drug and alcohol education to overall well-being

• Proposed that Ofsted inspectors will take account of pupils’ and parents’ views of well-being alongside measures of outcomes, when making judgements about the effectiveness of a school in promoting well-being.

• develop quality standards for local areas to adopt regarding the use of external contributors to drug education in schools and for the materials available.


The Quality of Drug and Alcohol Information and Education in Further Education (FE) and Non-Formal

Settings

Review

• Review the range of existing drug guidance across all settings and update, adopt and disseminate them to the field;

Government

• Develop guidance for FE Colleges on drug and alcohol education, and to consider the means by which this could in future be delivered in FE Colleges.


• Ensure that drug education is reflected in the Healthy Colleges Programme currently being developed by the Department of Health; and

• Develop Healthy Colleges Programme.


• Strengthen the drug and alcohol elements of professional development for the wider children’s workforce, applying all relevant professional quality standards.


Better identification and support for vulnerable young people

Review• Issue guidance on best

practice in the screening and identification of vulnerable young people; including the use of vulnerability matrices and the Common Assessment Framework (CAF);

Government• Include advice on the

screening and identification of vulnerable young people in the revised guidance.


• Support schools in developing evidence based targeted prevention programmes, specifically to support young people at higher risk of drug misuse;


• Increase awareness of local young people’s specialist drug misuse early intervention and treatment services by teachers and other relevant staff, as well as students and their families; and

• ensure improved awareness of local young people’s specialist substance misuse treatment services.


• Establish clear procedures to ensure that young people with identified treatment needs are able to access the right services whilst continuing to receive education appropriate to their needs.

• Pilot a project with the FRANK helpline to enable better access to local services for young people in need of treatment support.


Research and Evaluation

Review

• Continue to commission research and disseminate evidence of effective practice in drug and alcohol education, including building on the findings of the Blueprint study, when they are available.

Government• Strengthen the evidence

base on the impact of youth work and community based approaches

• Commissioned Liverpool John Moore’s University to produce an evaluation toolkit for local drug prevention projects to use to enable a more systematic evaluation of their impact.



WHAT’S NEXT?


PSHE

• Independent Review– Already underway– Report to Ministers in April 09– Legislation leading to PSHE statutory by 2011


Principles for statutory PSHE education

• all children and young people should receive a common core of information and practical skills

• parents should be fully involved with schools on PSHE learning, • there should be a national framework setting out this common

core entitlement• the quality of teaching and learning needs to improve, better to

meet the needs of young people• PSHE education should be planned and delivered by trained,

competent and confident teachers with support from expertise beyond the school

• Effective provision should lead to improved outcomes for children in terms of knowledge, skills, understanding and behaviour


Health & Medicine

Drug Education Review