Stand4 - Drug and Alcohol Education Unit
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Program Objectives
- Drug Education and Harm Prevention strategies
- Staff and Parent Information/training nights.
- Liaison with and referrals to Quality Cognitive Based Therapies.
- Resource and Materials development.
- Drug & Alcohol policy advice and recommendations.
1) Vision - Evidence of increasing need for specialist program.
Drug and Alcohol use, abuse and experimentation is again on the increase, with students now believing ‘getting wasted’ is a rite of passage for teenagers.
“Binge drinking is a really big problem in our young generation at the moment. We are talking about kids as young as 12 years old, particularly at risk is the 16-19 year old.”
- Dr. Capolingua. Taken from Channel 7 Web News 30/5/07
- 51% of Victorians aged between 16-24 years old regularly drink at high risk levels
- 41% 18-24 year olds drink to pass out
- 35% Victorians aged 14-19 drink at dangerous levels on a weekly basis
- 33% of Victorians drink more than 10 drinks in one sitting
- 10% of Victorians drink enough to risk brain injury
- 35% rise in alcohol related emergency department presentations
- Costs to community in $7.6 billion to Australian economy
- $1.2 billion lost by Australian businesses
- 7.5 million working days lost
- The Age 5/7/07 ‘Heading for a hangover’ Jill Stark, taken from Collins & Lapsley Studies.
And these reports are only dealing with the easy-to-access drug of alcohol. Other stats for illicit drugs are long and alarming.
2) Pilot success
We have conducted a number of pilots of this particular style, format and emphasis of the Drug & Alcohol Education – The emphasis on more thorough approach that also engages students/clients in a proactive participation in peer prevention and intervention – including the setup by students of programs
Excerpt from "Young People’s Involvement Program: Field Visit Report" (City of Greater Dandenong Council)
“Cornerstone Contact Centre received funding through Young People’s Involvement Program to organise Values for Life (V4L) team to run workshop on ‘Drugs & Why People Use Them’ in a Youth Organisation (Boys Brigade), two schools (Emerson School and Nazareth College) in Greater Dandenong.
The Values For Life (V4L) program aims to create opportunities for young people to investigate and debate personal harm reduction strategies, social issues surrounding substance use in a one day seminar by using games, showing video clips, listening to a live musician perform songs on the issue and asking questions. At the end of the day each student will develop recommendations for Council action to reduce drug-related harms and put them in writing to be passed on to the Mayor of the City.
According to young people the workshop was very informative and Values For Life Facilitator (V4L) was great in engaging everyone in discussion and sharing personal experiences.
As a result of attending Values For Life (V4L) workshop, young people felt more empowered to make decisions and form their own opinions about drug related harms. According to workshop attendees, more seminars similar to Values for Life (V4L) should be conducted in schools, to make young people aware of drug related harms. Young people would suggest all young people to attend Values for Life (V4L) workshop in order to be informed about drug related harms, and were grateful to be provided with a chance to express their recommendations for Council to reduce drug-related harms and put them in writing to be passed on to the Mayor of the City”
3) Feedback and Evaluations
- Teacher Feedback – “Fantastically presented, extremely relevant and thought provoking, I’d certainly recommend you, you do a fantastic job…10/10”
- Students – “today really opened my eyes and made me think about my actions…made me realize how important life is and the choices that you make…I thought this workshop was good because it showed practical solutions for what happens in the real world…this stuff is inspirational!!”
- 93% of workshop participants believed drug education should be a mandatory subject in school curriculum.
- Over 98% of students attending our workshops believed every school should have more of them.
- Taken from YPIP (Young People's Involvement Project) City of Greater Dandenong funded Drug Workshops.
