The Drinkaware Trust is currently funding current projects. 

Avon Youth Association - Drinkwise Project 

This grant funded an expansion of Avon Youth Association’s existing outreach work. Their projects for young people are conducted via an outreach bus, enabling them to deliver interactive and awareness building interventions in deprived areas. With this award they are extending this work to cover alcohol and are running an initiative covering law, the financial implications of excessive drinking along with the physical, sexual and mental health consequences.

They employ such methods as music and drama exercises as well as the goggles often used to simulate the effects of drunkenness. Around 330 young people aged thirteen to nineteen will be reached by this project living in the rural Shirehampton district, with twelve existing service users being trained as peer educators who will help the youth worker carry out the workshops. All those involved can also have their efforts accredited through the Bristol Youth Awards.

Wigan Young People’s Drug and Alcohol Team - Young People’s Peer Education Alcohol Project

In partnership with a local youth Group, Wigan Young People’s DAAT received funding from Drinkaware to begin a self-perpetuating peer education project on alcohol. During the first six sessions the ten to fifteen participants are not only taught about the effects and risks of alcohol abuse, but also learn about the importance of peer education and some of the best techniques for carrying it out.

The following four workshops see this group employing these methods and using their newly acquired knowledge to educate the first group of around forty trainees. It is at this point that the cycle of peer to peer learning starts to take shape, as several of these forty trainees will themselves become educators and broaden the scope of the work. It is hoped that a network of peer educators will in time establish itself across Wigan, with the dual benefits of enhancing knowledge and constantly improving the manner in which the peer education is conducted.

Harmony Youth Project - Be Aware

This is a 20-week alcohol awareness initiative; educating 20 young people aged 13 - 21 on the risks and effects of alcohol abuse and beginning with three weeks of outreach to identify suitable participants. There then follows eight weeks of alcohol education conducted by a professional substance misuse worker with guest speakers and group debates to ensure the sessions are both memorable and interactive. A second eight-week spell is then used to tackle the creative elements.

These include devising role plays, writing lyrics for a song and recording it professionally and editing a video diary of their work in their own studio. These outputs will be posted on their website and shown to other schools and youth groups with the aim of reaching up to a thousand young people. On the back of this work they will establish a peer support network to serve as an ongoing platform for future debate among young people, alongside a peer mentoring programme.

South Bromsgrove High School – Alcohol and Sex

This was a relatively small grant enabling South Bromsgrove school to hire the company Dred UK to give a presentation to pupils on the various effects of alcohol on sex as part of a PSHE day on relationships. Dred cover well-known factors such as peer pressure, STIs, unplanned pregnancies and lowered inhibitions due to excessive drinking; but also make pupils aware of issues which are less frequently highlighted such as the poor application of contraceptives and the fact that casual intercourse can often cause the devaluing of sexual experiences which, in turn, can lead to decreased self-esteem and depression in the long term. They also cover the effect alcohol can have on relationships by being a major cause of cheating and poor control of emotions. At the same time, however, they balance this with positives such as the fun people can have when drinking responsibly. Through this award, some 330 year 9 pupils will receive unusually detailed information on this subject.

Didsbury Arts Collective – A Drink Too Many

This project sees the creation of a DVD resource both by and for young people. Over the course of six months, a youth steering panel is appointed to ensure that young people guide progress from the outset. This is followed by a series of discussions on alcohol which is intended to inform the dramatic element of the DVD and which are themselves filmed as part of the full pack. Young people then enact up to five scenes which depict real-life situations where alcohol has a major negative influence. The completed DVDs are turned into comprehensive resource packs through the addition of scene transcripts and details of how the project was organized. T200 copies of the full pack are then distributed to relevant community groups and individuals in the area. The full resource will then be incorporated into Didsbury’s ongoing substance abuse work. It is hoped that up to 250 young people aged thirteen to nineteen will be reached by this initiative.

Chichester District Council – Last Orders Play and Workshop

This award is a contribution towards a series of performances of the above educational piece by the Solomon Theatre Company. The play and workshop both last for one hour and between them cover such issues as health, effects, the law, decision making, risk taking and the effect of alcohol on levels of crime and antisocial behaviour. The tour is expected to reach around one thousand year 9 pupils, many of whom live in hard to reach rural areas which rarely benefit from such interventions. The theatre piece was created by practitioners such as doctors, police, teachers and NSPCC professionals and uses real situations to enforce the core messages. Agencies such as emergency services participate in the workshop to lend immediacy to the whole package and give it a local flavour. The actors are also young to aid audience identification with the characters. All this is then supplemented by follow-up work for teachers provided by the theatre company so that the young people retain the knowledge they have gained.

Tangere Arts – Lauren

This grant allows Tangere to put on the Lauren theatre piece free of charge for around 1,000 year 10 pupils in ten schools across Derby. First rolled out as a pilot in 2007, this piece comprises a one-woman performance lasting for 45 minutes followed by a 15-minute workshop conducted by a separate facilitator, involving both the audience and the actress. Between them these two elements deal with the consequences of long term alcohol misuse, demonstrate the links between binge drinking and antisocial behaviour and challenge under-eighteens’ general attitudes to alcohol. The whole project is based on various other past initiatives with different age groups, which helps to ensure Lauren avoids condescension. The workshop also features the reenactment of those parts of the show where the audience feels a wrong decision was made. Unlike many projects of its kind, however, Lauren does not interrupt the actual performance to demonstrate these alternatives. Tangere also intends to carry out sample visits to schools to gauge long term knowledge retention, the kind of impact measurement that is pivotal to good evaluation.

Act On It – Double Measure

This Project begins with an alcohol awareness exhibition at a local event for young people. This has the dual purpose of enhancing attendees’ alcohol awareness and enabling Act On It to consult with young people on how best to approach drama-based workshops which form the next stage of the project.

This series of dramatic awareness building sessions tackles alcohol’s effects on people and society, short- and long-term harms and units. The exercises use information obtained from the launch and partner organisations and encourage attendees to explore their own different methods of changing peers’ behaviour through experimentation with music and humour, combined with shocking images and statistics to hammer the messages home.

Performing their ideas to one another, along with the various sources of information at their disposal, is intended to increase the young people’s powers of resistance.

Sheffield Hallam University – Nutrition Fare

This was a small grant towards a stall at the fare entitled ‘Time at the Bar’ raising awareness of DoH alcohol guidelines and units. Students, staff and the public are asked to pour coloured water into different sized containers to test their grasp of units when judging measures at home. A self-made information leaflet is also made available along with alcohol free drinks and snacks. All attendees fill in feedback sheets to gauge knowledge retention. This last part is insentivised by putting each completed sheet into a raffle.

Altonhill Youth Group – "Go on, have a drink!"

This is a six-week peer education programme for 15 young people aged 12-16 in Kilmarnock. They use photography to explore why people binge drink, the Scottish drinking culture and alcohol’s effects. Using these images depicting the local situations in known drinking hotspots, they will create three pieces of artwork to be displayed in key locations for peers to see.

The initiative culminates in an event for peers and parents where they show-case their work and the ideas behind it and get all those present to tackle an alcohol quiz which they attempted themselves during an earlier stage of the project.

The London Bus Theatre Company – Turn around Charlie!

This grant funded a tour of a free and interactive theatre piece in Basildon for the benefit of around 80 young people aged 14-19. The plot sees two young people committing crimes due to alcohol and being charged. It features characters who give in to peer pressure and demonstrates risks by presenting alcohol as the cause of all the characters’ problems.

The situation is resolved with the storyline having demonstrated how the various agencies involved in their passage through the criminal justice system worked to straighten things out. The messaging is then re-emphasised at the end through a reflective monologue from the main character on alcohol and its harms.

Exposure Organisation Ltd – Listen Up

With help from several of Exposure’s volunteers and a professional DJ, a group of ten under-18s will gather to write, produce and record four different alcohol awareness adverts to be played on two local community radio stations in north London.

The contact with participants over 10 weeks not only furnishes these young people with the skills to create radio worthy ads, but greatly enhances their knowledge of alcohol and its risks and gives them the opportunity to reach up to 5,000 peers with their work.

Local authorities help to identify candidates for the project, the two radio stations are committed to playing the ads over a two-month period and Exposure itself will spread the messages further by featuring the ads on their own website and Myspace page. Drinkaware’s grant contributed towards the costs of freelance staff and essential materials. 

Pride Media Association – Sloshed?

This is a creative and educational project which takes 16 young women, aged 13-19 and engages them in discussions two ensure a full grasp of key alcohol issues, particularly women’s increased vulnerability to sexual risks.

Facilitators employ story-telling, monologues and poetry to guarantee a creative element. This combined approach, over 12 contact hours per person, enables them to create and act out several performances using knowledge and personal experiences.

These pieces will then be broadcast by Pride Media’s own radio project and a local school’s radio station for the benefit of their peers. Afterwards, the performances will be put onto CD and sent to other secondary schools and youth groups as a resource. It is hoped that all beneficiaries will make more informed decisions in the future.

This grant met such costs as the salaries of freelance workers, CD copying and distribution and prizes to incentivise giving feedback. Pride Media also hope to rerun the project later this year.

Coventry Mutual Black Youth Association (CMBYA) – The Keep Control Initiative

This project gathers 32 young people from BME groups, aged 15-19, to learn about alcohol and then create a musical piece to be both recorded and performed live. The contact time with these participants is divided into two sections.

The first involves three alcohol awareness sessions per week over a period of 12 weeks. A second spell, spanning the same period of time, is devoted to the creation of the music, rehearsals for performance and the making of the CD at a recording studio. This is then followed by a series of Saturday performances over 10 weeks in schools and other youth settings across Coventry and Birmingham, with the key event taking place at the Coventry Town Hall in front of one thousand peers on 1 September.

The songs convey safe drinking messages based on the information the young people received during the first phase, and the recorded CD versions are distributed free to all schools and other youth settings in the Coventry area.

Wirral Borough Council – How Much is Too Much

This is an eight-week educational project where twelve young people are gathered to learn about alcohol and then create a DVD for their peers. It begins with two three-hour workshops on the immediate consequences of binge drinking along with its effects on families. This is followed by two more sessions where the young people use what they have learnt to create a dramatic piece, taking responsibility for script writing, filming and acting. Participants are then reassembled to learn how the hired media company will turn their work into a coherent classroom resource.

The edited version is then show-cased to young people and parents at a further event where their views will be taken into account. The company then produce a final version, complete with discussion prompts for facilitators, to be distributed in the area. The final stage of the project sees the young creators of the DVD meeting again so facilitators can gauge their long term retention of alcohol information.

Rivington and Blackrod High School – Party Safe

This project is essentially a partnership between Rivington School and a local group called Youth Express. Young people from the latter organisation work together to produce a 10-20 minute DVD demonstrating the dangers of drinking to excess and showing how quickly things can get out of control. They tackle all creative aspects from script writing to editing. The DVD tracks an average night out and features several alternative endings depending on decisions taken by those watching the resource.

These outcomes range from being a victim of crime to regulating consumption successfully. The DVD will be shown in the school’s PHSE classes and assemblies reaching approximately 1500 young people. Drinkaware’s grant pays for DVD replication which should increase this reach figure through the distribution of copies to other schools and youth groups in the area.

All those involved in making the piece are also expected to undertake the Drinkaware Challenge with the whole project culminating with an impact assessment.

Social Spider – Hackney Youth Conference

Here a group of young people create a youth conference on responsible drinking for peers aged 13-19. The project begins with a youth consultation event so that young people can give advice on how best to communicate key messages and run the conference.

A core group then set about organising the event and take on the tasks of arranging speakers, putting together an awareness building drama, designing promotional flyers and setting up web advertising such as a MySpace page. They even arrange catering for the day and give instructions to a local theatre group regarding what they would like to see included in the conference’s second theatrical piece.

The event finishes with a Q&A panel and discussion session. Sixty individuals are engaged in total, as delegates or organisers, with their efforts being accredited through the AQA scheme. Drinkaware’s contribution assisted with costs such as freelance staff, speakers’ expenses and the production of materials.