A couple of decades before starting a drug education charity, I set out as an English teacher, working in adult education for our local authority in south London. Over the years I taught all sorts of English, to all sorts of people, from GCSE, A-level, and degree-level teacher training, to how to write your name and address correctly. One of the very big differences between teaching English and delivering drug education, however, is that doing the former badly doesn’t increase the likelihood of someone in your class taking more risks rather than fewer, and coming to greater harm as a consequence.
Thankfully, there’s a robust international evidence base of what works, and also what doesn’t (
see footnote), and that should be the starting point for anyone doing drug education in any shape or form, whether a specialist drug educator, or a teacher delivering drug education in PSHE. As a drug education charity, and one founded following the death of a deeply loved boy, it’s incredibly important that we adhere to this tightly. It matters too much. It’s vital that all we do, and all we provide for others to use, does as much of the good as is possible, and none of the harm that drug education done badly can cause. And some of this is counter-intuitive. Who’d have thought using shock and scare tactics, ex-addicts and police officers would be on the side of what to be wary of? It’s also best to avoid one-off, stand-alone sessions, lecturing and information-only approaches, and sessions delivered by people inadequately trained to do so, but this will be less surprising to the average teacher.
I’ve just written the drug and alcohol education chapter in a new textbook for PSHE teachers coming out later this year from Bloomsbury ¿´Æ¬¿ñÈË, and that goes into a lot more detail about all this, but here’s a very brief summary of what’s been shown in extensive research to be effective practice when it comes to drug education.
What works in drug education?
Evidence shows that students need to receive a series of structured, age-appropriate lessons, delivered through a spiral curriculum over multiple years, embedded within whole school PSHE planning. This needs to be delivered by people specifically trained to do this, taking the role of a facilitator, and using interactive methods. Lessons and workshops need to include accurate, relevant information, including age-appropriate harm minimisation. They also need to provide students with opportunities to practise and learn a range of personal and social skills, including skills for increasing self-control and improving self-esteem, and for coping with challenging life situations in healthy ways, contextualised to drugs. Students need to gain substance and peer refusal competencies to counter those social pressures that can reach a pitch of intensity in adolescence. They also need drug education to provide them with opportunities to reflect on their own views and values in relation to drugs and alcohol, and to examine and query the influences that can inform these, and shape their perceptions of risk or harm associated with substance use. This is what we train our drug education team to do, what we reflect in our drug education workshops, and what is embedded in our drug education PSHE lesson programmes for schools.
DSM Foundation drug education resources for schools
As well as providing drug education workshops for students, and for parents, and training for staff, and a Youth Ambassador programme for sixth forms, and a touring Theatre in ¿´Æ¬¿ñÈË production, ‘I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die’ (a verbatim play by Mark Wheeller, which excitingly will become a GCSE Drama set text this September), we also have a comprehensive programme of drug education lesson plans and resources for teachers to use,
Making Safer Choices. These are all
free to download from our .
The resources are available for the Scottish school framework, as well as for England and Wales, and there’s a set of lessons for every secondary year group, from year 7 to year 13 (S1 to S6), which we’ve adapted for shorter form time sessions. They cover the risks and effects of drugs and alcohol, legal risks and consequences, decision making and managing peer influence, the impact of substance use, practical strategies for staying safe, including harm reduction and drug and alcohol first aid for older students, and where students can find support if it’s needed. You can see a map of these . They’re designed to be flexible, to fit around the differing needs of schools: they can be used by a school with every year group, and they’re written to reinforce and extend prior learning; they can also be combined to be used across alternate years, for example years 8, 10 and 12 (or S2 and S4); they can also be planned to fit alongside other resources schools might be using and fill any gaps.
We review, update and overhaul these every summer, in the light of feedback from students and teachers, and changes and developments nationally, so they’re up-to-date and relevant, and as good as we can make them. Our aim has always been to provide effective, evidence-based resources that are as easy as possible for a busy teacher to pick up and deliver well. There are so many important topics to cover in PSHE, teachers have their own subjects to focus on too, and we know time is incredibly pressured and tight. We want to do what we can to help, in relation to drug education at least, to enable this to be done as well as it possibly can be.
As I said, it matters too much.
Please
get in touch if you’d like to find out more, or have a look on our .
Footnote: See International Standards on Drug Use Prevention (UNODC, 2018); European Drug Prevention Quality Standards (EMCDDA, 2011); European Prevention Curriculum (EMCDDA, 2019); ‘What works’ in drug education and prevention? (Scottish Government, 2016)