The Unique Coffee Bar – Drink Unique

This initiative gives key alcohol facts to between twenty and thirty-five disadvantaged young people and then helps them to design resources which will communicate them to their peers. It begins with eight educational workshops covering what alcohol is, drink driving, making healthy choices, spiking, sexual health and campaigning ideas. Each person will gather a portfolio of evidence from these sessions, enabling them to receive an OCN accredited qualification. The second phase entails six more sessions with a CAD designer, graffiti artist and photographer to create relevant images which can then be worked up into poster designs. Lastly, participants identify places where their peers congregate and put up the posters while also taking booklets to other youth agencies in the area which feature the same designs along with session plans and activity sheets on alcohol. These organizations will have been approached in advance to gauge their levels of interest.

Churches Action on Substance Misuse – Safer Drinking

CASM is a charity carrying out educational work on alcohol and substance misuse in the Wirral. This project sees CASM collaborating with the company Subaware to deliver Safer Drinking, an alcohol awareness workshop. Between them, the two organizations have adjusted the workshop so that it focuses exclusively on alcohol and now intend to tour it to schools in the area. Through 40 performances they aim to reach around two thousand thirteen to sixteen year olds and greatly enhance their knowledge of the risks and harms associated with alcohol. With Drinkaware’s financial assistance, CASM hope that the young audiences will gain a broad understanding of alcohol through practical exercises, DVDs and discussions.

Warwickshire Association of Youth Clubs (WAYC) – Moderation

This is a six session alcohol awareness course aimed primarily at young people aged thirteen to nineteen which, in broad terms, covers the effects of alcohol on individuals and society. Through a variety of exercises, participants explore the differing alcohol cultures of other countries, advertising, comparisons between alcohol and illegal drugs, units and ABV and the failure of prohibition. This breadth allows them to investigate the history and science of alcohol as well as the industry itself and explain many of these aspects through a visit to a local brewery. Furthermore, exercises wearing restricted vision goggles on a driving range highlight the issues of handling a vehicle while under the influence, with their efforts being videoed to demonstrate the outsider’s perspective. The overarching principles of the project are demonstrating to attendees that alcohol is a commodity like any other but a drug nonetheless, while encouraging all present to understand alcohol without simply employing the conventional dire warnings.

Early Break – the Young Voices Project

Here the Trust contributed to the purchase of essential resources for the education of under-19s, often one to one, on the dangers of excessive drinking. This intervention uses an outreach van to deliver key messages to young people. It visits areas where substance abuse is common and where they know particularly vulnerable young people congregate. Through this award Early Break were able to obtain the types of visual resources on alcohol which the young people themselves have stated are especially useful. The DVDs, posters and goggles used cover the law, drink driving, units, spiking and sexual and mental health, which should enhance the young people’s ability to make more informed and confident decisions regarding their drinking habits. As well as outreach work, Early Break intend to use these resources in schools and other youth settings wherever appropriate.

Buckinghamshire Drug and Alcohol Action Team – Safe, Sensible and Social in Bucks

This grant enabled Buckinghamshire DAAT to hire an experienced theatre company to deliver a two-part alcohol awareness piece for school pupils across the county aged eleven to thirteen. The first of these distinct sections tackles long-term harms such as the illnesses afflicting older people, while the second addresses more immediate issues of crime, antisocial behaviour and unsafe sex. Divided performances increase engagement levels which are especially important for those who are already harder to reach due to firmly established drinking habits. Similarly, hotseating enables the young people to discuss characters’ behaviour and suggest alternative courses of action. The DAAT also ensures that young people can easily access services after each performance and will provide teachers with follow-up packs to support future alcohol work. Every pupil also completes pre- and post-performance questionnaires to gauge the amount of knowledge gained and another sample group of pupils fills in similar sheets three months later to evaluate long-term retention of the facts. 

This project revolves around a drama piece but also aims to include the local community from start to finish to enhance general alcohol awareness. It begins with press advertising for the theatre production and accompanying workshop, called Gagging for It, which covers alcohol and associated risks and is performed in venues around the Langley Estate in Greater Manchester reaching up to five thousand young people. The same adverts invite young locals to enter an art competition where a prize can be won for the best design which will then b used for information resources distributed at the shows. Young people identified by several local organizations then work in small groups to develop various aspects of the show ranging from set design to script, receiving alcohol training along the way. Drinkaware funded materials and specialist staff so that the group work and subsequent production could proceed as planned.

This initiative comprises a series of eight three-hour alcohol awareness sessions aimed at around seventy-five highly vulnerable homeless people living in the Aldershot area, aged between sixteen and twenty-five. Most beneficiaries have given up on education, and consequently have very low literacy and no qualifications, and have difficulty acquiring vital social skills. It is hoped that an alcohol awareness course tailored to their needs by covering health, sexual risk-taking, crime and public perceptions of excessive drinkers should cause key messages to sink in and encourage them to reflect more on their decisions regarding alcohol. At a deeper level, it is hoped that attendees will better understand the financial implications of excessive drinking, the effect a criminal record has on an individual’s employability and the significance of peer and parental pressure.

Read John's story here

This initiative addresses the dangers and effects of alcohol abuse and aims to enhance young people’s ability to make informed decisions through workshops and outreach work, targeting up to fifty individuals from BME groups in Lambeth deemed at risk of harmful drinking. Each participant, aged thirteen to nineteen, attends six three-hour weekly sessions to enhance their knowledge of key risks such as unplanned sex, crime and health harms. These themes are tackled through slide shows, materials from the local PCT and group discussions. All attendees are also assigned a mentor to provide further guidance where necessary. Hewabora hope that the project will bring about reductions in crime and the numbers of young people admitted to addiction, medical and social services. Supplementing the alcohol classes with outreach work during the following months will help to realize these long-term goals.

Llangollen Community Safety Group – Llangollen Youth Programme

This is a voluntary organization set up to reduce the disorder caused by young people in the area. In this instance, the grant serves as a general contribution towards a work programme including several sporting activities and the launch of a new cyber café. Both ideas are based on discussions with young people and together should create a  strong platform for alcohol work which would be conducted by social and outreach workers. Ten to Seventeen year-olds from the various communities, which are largely segregated at present, would also be brought together by such activities, an advantage highlighted by the young people themselves at the consultation stage.

Echo of Africa – On the Road to Recovery

Here Drinkaware funded an initiative which takes eighteen young people from BME groups, all with experience of alcohol abuse of some kind or another, and trains them to become peer mentors. Over a nine-week period, these under-18s are taught about alcohol in five-hour sessions through dramatic work coupled with exercises to build self-esteem and teamworking skills. The knowledge attained is then used for peer mentoring and outreach work carried out in schools, youth centres and at local events over a second nine-week phase. Echo hopes that the number of young people from this target group living beneath the poverty line will diminish and that young asylum seekers and refugees in particular, who often live without any parental influence whatsoever, will understand the risks associated with alcohol and make more informed decisions based on what their peers have taught them. Echo also hopes to see a decrease in the school drop-out rate as a result of this project.

Tribute Trust – Spirit Hold

The Tribute Trust runs media and arts projects for young people in the Southwark area. This work sees up to thirty at risk teenagers making a hip-hop track about alcohol, called Spirit Hold, where they use the negative lyrics often associated with the genre to convey a responsible drinking message. Participants also make the accompanying video which Tribute hopes will reach over a thousand others through webposting and local media. Those involved gain alcohol knowledge along with music recording and videoing skills.

WillenHall Chart Trust - YAPEP – Young People’s Alcohol Peer Education Project

This project aims to tackle the area’s underage drinking and resulting teenage pregnancy. There are several phases, each expanding on the one before to involve as many young people as possible. It begins by teaching around ten young people about alcohol and its misuse who design awareness building materials and pass facts onto peers through outreach work. This prompts others to attend further workshops where they learn more and take on peer education roles themselves. There then follows a conference where these young educators receive certificates for their work and where still more people are invited to future workshops. This continuous growth enables them to access many different locations, such as places of worship, and create materials in other languages.

Lewisham Francophone Asylum and Refugee Centre – French Speaking Capacity Building Development Project

These workshops are for young people from the black, French-speaking communities living in Lewisham and surrounding boroughs. With the help of local partners, LFARC will tackle such issues as alcohol’s differing effects on men and women, its influence on certain bodily functions such as the brain and heartbeat, how it can react with some over-the-counter medicines and resistance to peer pressure. As a French-speaking organization, they aim to combat the difficulties these individuals face when trying to obtain useful information or access local services because of the language barrier. Here the grant pays for the facilitator, room hire, traveling expenses for staff and volunteers along with promotional and workshop materials.

Fit Kidz Warrington – Fit Kids Alcohol Education Project

Fit Kidz has experience of conveying key lifestyle messages to young people through film-based projects on such issues as general health and nutrition. This, and a youth committee to guide their work, provide a firm basis for an alcohol initiative that would make sense to other teenagers. For eight weeks over summer, around eighty attendees make a graffiti art piece where they express their feelings regarding alcohol, take part in discussions and role plays and tackle interactive exercises such as computer based activities and work with beer goggles. These tasks, and the knowledge gained from them, enable the young people to make a DVD on alcohol covering issues ranging from driving under the influence and underage drinking to alcohol’s effect on athletic development. They aim to reach hundreds of other young people with the DVD.

Read Dave's story here

Heywood Neighbourhood Wardens – time to change

This initiative comprises three alcohol-free events, each educating up to 150 young people about underage drinking, the harm to individuals and society arising from alcohol abuse, including financial instability along with the well-known physical dangers. Each evening incorporates discos, live music and opportunities to perform which soften the relative formality of the educational workshops led by the local DAAT, Police, health professionals and other partners. All the stakeholders hope to use the events as a pilot for an alcohol free bar which will also serve as a diversion and base for informal education. The benefits for the community are clear and the project has received healthy support from residents as a result. This work also facilitates the recruitment of young people as peer educators for the next phase.

Edinburgh Youth Café – The Lad – Drama and DVD Project

This interactive DVD is a film created, acted and edited by a group of ten of the Café’s service users. It shows how a family can be affected by a young member drinking. It tackles the physical and emotional consequences of drinking and encourages viewers to examine their own behaviour by selecting different courses of action as they watch. The DVD forms part of a pack comprising information resources from Drinkaware and other organisations, as well as prompt cards which guide youth facilitators through games and discussions about alcohol, the law and services. The pack is incorporated into the café’s own work and circulated to other local agencies helping vulnerable young people aged twelve to twenty-one.

Tameside Metropolitan Council – Primary Alcohol Arts Project

This is an arts-based alcohol awareness project reaching nearly a thousand primary school children and their parents across Tameside. The first part is a theatre piece performed by the company Theatre Bus, which covers the issues of young people drinking in public, parents drinking and alcohol’s impact on families. There then follows a music and dance component which is in turn succeeded by ceramics workshops. This third element places particular emphasis on unit awareness and how labeling can tempt consumers to drink. The whole package is both interactive and creative with the aims of enhancing awareness of alcohol and its harms, increasing the children’s self-confidence and instilling a sense of responsibility.

Brynawel House Alcohol Rehabilitation Centre – Sober and Safe Wales

With Drinkaware’s support, Brynawel were able to run an alcohol awareness project for fourteen-year-olds in five schools across Rhondda Cynon Taff. Each school received two workshops: the first dealt with relevant facts and figures as well as the various implications of young people drinking to excess. The second was delivered during the same week by a former Brynawel resident, speaking to pupils about their experience of alcohol addiction and the impact it had on all aspects of their life. Both workshops incorporated group activities and question and answer sessions. 

B Arts – Drink This! Project

This is a multi media project aiming to raise Young people's awareness of alcohol misuse and its impact on the public. B arts artists work with 20 Y8 pupils from three schools in Staffordshire using theatre, video, still photography, sound and projection to create a performance and workshop that the group must show to Y6 & Y7 classes. Year 8s learn the subject in detail and then pass facts on to their younger peers, as well as tips for resisting peer pressure which the young people themselves highlighted as a key issue.

Longslade Community College – Prince’s Trust XL Programme

Here we awarded a small sum to the alcohol element of a project which, for the eleven participants, would contribute to the achievement of their Prince's Trust Awards. Their work covers the many effects of alcohol, personal safety (including safe drinking guidelines), law and its influence on relationships and certain pastimes such as sport. To make the information more memorable, there is also a trip to the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham, where cases involving alcohol and drugs are reenacted. The participants are also given the task of creating a piece of work for peers on alcohol.

Hampshire Police – Red Hot Summer Discos

This project takes place in August 2007 and will be coordinated by The Rushmoor Youth Summer Activities Committee, a partnership of local agencies. This series of open-air discos serves both as a diversion for young people and a simple means for them to access information on alcohol. Drinkaware’s grant contributed towards the educational component of this year’s events and enabled young people in the borough of Rushmoor to enhance their awareness whilst having fun in an alcohol-free environment.

Learning through Action – the It’s Your Life Project

This project is an interactive workshop aimed at seven- to eleven-year-olds which tackles the links between alcohol and crime, bullying and antisocial behaviour. The facilitators use role plays and various other visual stimuli to prompt discussion, demonstrate how people can resist peer pressure and reveal the general effects that alcohol can have on our emotions. In this instance, Drinkaware’s donation served to make the workshop more affordable for those schools who could not meet Learning through Action’s already reduced charge for less affluent establishments. 

Splash (Wiltshire) – Alcohol Drama Project

This is a pilot project aimed at fourteen young people between thirteen and sixteen. The candidates will be educated through a series of workshops run by the Police, health professionals and other community partners. With the aid of artists, their enhanced knowledge will be discussed and fed into a dramatic piece on alcohol of their own creation which will be performed to an invited audience. All participants will each be given a DVD of the show as a tangible record of their achievements. With Drinkaware’s contribution, it is hoped that the Wiltshire branch of Splash will have to capacity for further alcohol work in the future.

Nottinghamshire Connections – Nottinghamshire Midnight Basketball

This initiative consists of twelve weekly alcohol workshops run in conjunction with basketball training sessions aimed at up to thirty young people aged thirteen to nineteen. Professionals from a local basketball team do the coaching while youth workers teach them about alcohol. Among other things, they cover what alcohol actually is, its various effects, the law, dependence, units, sensible and binge drinking and more specific areas such as the differing risks for men and women. They use games, discussions and videos throughout to ensure variety and do a quiz at the beginning and end of the course to assess the amount of knowledge attained.

Consett Churches (detached Youth Project) – What is really at the Bottom of the Bottle

Here Drinkaware funded six four-week courses for the benefit of thirty-five to forty young people between twelve and twenty-five. Candidates are recruited in the nearby area through outreach work by trained practitioners. The training is fun and educational and covers various alcohol-related topics. These include having fun without alcohol, short- and long-term health implications along with other consequences such as the physical and mental abuse which is attributable to alcohol, poverty and women’s increased vulnerability through drunkenness. As the grant funded reusable resources, we hope extended alcohol work will be more feasible.

Dorset County Council – Re-juice Project

Drinkaware part-funded an alcohol awareness project for thirteen to seventeen year-olds implemented by the Wareham Youth Service. It comprises four weekly sessions after school covering the various risks of alcohol and resisting peer pressure. They mix traditional teaching methods with activities such as making non-alcoholic cocktails. These are coupled with four fun alcohol free events where the education is less formal and emphasis is placed on having fun without alcohol. The grant contributed to the purchase of teaching materials and funded a performance of the Last Orders play and workshop which kick-starts the programme and is used to recruit candidates.

UK East African Women and Children (East London) – Alcohol Awareness Project

This alcohol education project is aimed at the Swahili speaking community, chiefly in Newham, providing general information on units, law and risks. They achieve this through a two-strand approach: the first comprises three seminars, each for twenty members of the public, where attendees are taught about the above subjects and pointed to relevant services. The second element is alcohol training for twenty community volunteers, who are given the same information and then, through their outreach work, pass it on to other Swahili speakers who may be unable to access alcohol information in English and are often unaware of nearby services.