AET newsletter - September 2019

September 2019

We hope you had a wonderful break over the summer and enjoyed the mainly good weather! We are replacing our parent newsletter with a more general newsletter in order to keep you informed of our progress and activities as a charity each quarter. We hope you find this useful and do send any ideas or recommendations to kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org .

Tesco Bags of Help

We are delighted to have been selected by the Tesco Bags of Help Centenary Grant scheme which will enable us to expand into two regions in depth next year.

Tesco customers across Cumbria, Lancashire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire will be able to use their blue tokens to vote for one of three charities throughout October, November and December in store, one of which is us and we will be awarded a share of a wonderful sum of money according to how many tokens are popped in our box!

Our Schools and Community Engagement Manager for the North Kathryn commented, 'I am delighted that we have been successful in our application for the Tesco Bags of Help Centenary Grant Scheme for Lancashire and Cumbria regions. If you are a school or youth organisation in either of these areas please do vote for us and spread the word to family and friends'.

The funds we receive will be used to support children and young people in schools, special schools, pupil referral units and youth/sports clubs throughout these regions with interactive resources and training that build resilience and promote safer life choices around alcohol. If you live in these areas, please contact us to learn more and PLEASE pop your blue token in our box in any Tesco store across the areas from October to the year end.

10th Anniversary Celebrations at The House of Commons

Our final 10th anniversary celebration this year is a show case and thank you tea in The Jubilee room at the House of Commons by kind invitation of Sir Oliver Letwin MP. It will take place on Thursday 7th November from 4-6pm. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to thank those who have helped us over the past 10 years. There will be an opportunity for a guided tour of the House of Commons beforehand too. For more information and to attend, please email kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org

As part of our Dorset Community engagement activities this Summer we held a colouring competition on things to enjoy for free over the Summer holidays at the Dorset Food and Arts Festival. With over 100 entries into the different age groups, it was a pleasure to award the prizes to six enthusiastic winners! The standard was brilliant with entrants from age 3 -13! With thanks to Humberts and The Gardens Group for their support ( we made bug hotels too!).

Update from Kathryn - Northern Schools Coordinator

Kathryn is continuing her work supporting Football Club Community Foundations and will be delivering a training session to Everton in the Community next week. Kathryn also has teacher training sessions planned in Durham and Northumberland both in special and mainstream schools shortly. She will also be attending Blackpool Schools PSHE forum to showcase our training and resources and York Schools Partner School Engagement meeting this term.

You can contact Kathryn via kathryn@alcoholeducationtrust.org

Update from Karen - South, West and Midlands Coordinator

The School summer holidays are always a much needed chance to recoup some energy and plan for the next academic year. However, in August Karen delivered training to the Taunton Dean and West Somerset School Nurses. ‘They were a pleasure to work with and we had a very enjoyable and informative session on what must have been one of the wettest days of the month!’

New connections have been made with Active Dorset, with lots of future partner activity discussed including being part of their PE, Health and Wellbeing Conference in September.

All secondary schools across Shropshire have been supported with our resources for the first time with great progress across the West Midlands and Bristol/South Gloucestershire too.

With the arrival of the beginning of term, it’s all systems go with Fresher’s Fairs in Dorset and Cornwall to spread the Alcohol Education Trust message this week. There’s also lots of upcoming teacher training sessions scheduled in Bath and North East Somerset, Dorset, Cornwall and Wolverhampton too.

Karen can be contacted via Karen@alcoholeducationtrust.org

Update from Brian - Scotland Director

We have now fulfilled our initial aim of supporting 100 schools across Scotland this year with either hard copies or online downloads of our resources. Without exception, each school we have supported has emphasised how good it is to have quality evidence-based resources within a very structured Teacher Workbook supported by a great interactive website www.talkaboutalcohol.com . Schools from across the whole of Scotland have been supported.

Brian can be contacted via brain@alcoholeducationtrust.org

We now have a separate newsletter for Scotland so if you’d like to subscribe to this, please email kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org or it is online via https://preview.mailerlite.com/e5k4b5 .

UK Guidelines on Alcohol Education in Secondary and Further Education

The NICE guidance on alcohol interventions in secondary and further education was published over the summer, along with the supporting evidence and stakeholder comments received during consultation and the responses to these comments.
The guidelines describe suitable approaches for alcohol education in secondary and further education that aim to prevent and reduce alcohol use among children and young people aged 11 - 18. Separate guidelines offer guidance for young people aged 11 to 25 with special educational needs or disabilities in full-time education.
The guidance includes recommendations on planning alcohol education, delivering universal alcohol education and on targeted interventions. You can find out more via https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng135

Statistics Round-Up

Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use among Young People in England 2018
Results from the biennial survey of secondary school pupils in England in years 7 to 11 (mostly aged 11 to 15), focusing on smoking, drinking and drug use was published in August.

In 2018, 44% of pupils said they had ever had an alcoholic drink, the same as in 2016. Prevalence of having ever had an alcoholic drink was the same for boys and girls. It varied with age, increasing from 14% of 11 year olds to 70% of 15 year olds. 6% of all pupils said they usually drank alcohol at least once per week, increasing with age, from 1% of 11 year olds to 14% of 15 year olds.

Pupils who drank alcohol in the last week consumed an estimated (mean) average of 10.3 units that week whilst the median average was 5 units. A fifth (21%) of pupils who drank in the last week were estimated to have drunk more than 15 units, above the weekly low risk guidelines for adults.

11% of girls and 9% of boys had drunk in the last week. The proportion increased after the age of 12; 2% of 11 year olds and 3% of 12 year olds drank in the last week, compared to 23% of 15 year olds. White pupils were most likely to have had an alcoholic drink in the last week, with 13% having done so . This compares to 7% of mixed ethnicity pupils, 3% of Black pupils and only 1% of Asian pupils.

A logistic regression model was used to explore which characteristics might be associated with drinking in the last week. 7 factors had a significant association with having drunk alcohol in the last week. Having parents who don't discourage drinking had the strongest association, followed by age (being older), and recent drug use.

Supply of alcohol to 11- 15 year olds is overwhelmingly from parents or carers until the age of 15, showing the importance of engaging them at school through talks.