AET General Newsletter - November 2023 |
|
|
|
So, the half term break is over and Halloween behind us! It was our end of year at the end of September, and during the year, our charity, with its tiny dedicated staff of 9, has supported young people in over 1230 settings including schools, children’s homes, pupil referral units, special schools, youth and sports clubs across England and Scotland. If we allow a very conservative 100 children per setting, we have equipped 123,000 young people with the knowledge, skills and resilience to make safer choices around alcohol and other substances such as cannabis and vaping – at a cost of under £3 per child.
Kathryn, Karen, Soraya, Helena and Shona have delivered 212 training sessions to teachers and youth workers and been involved in 220 other events such as assemblies, conferences and parent talks this year. This includes all aspects of alcohol and cannabis awareness including the law, social and physical effects, social norms, spiking, how to make safer choices, consent and vulnerability. This year we have introduced vaping awareness too – with more substances to be covered next year as we respond to the challenges faced in our communities day to day. We support young people, their parents and carers, teachers and youth professionals through our four regionally-based staff who visit schools, train professionals and support parents face to face and online.
|
|
|
|
The wonderful teachers and youth professionals that we train evaluate our workshops and results from 220 of those trained this year to use our talk about alcohol lessons, shows confidence rises from 6/10 before the session to 9/10 afterwards concerning knowledge and awareness about alcohol and signposting young people for help. In addition, 68% said they will change their approach to social norms (most overestimate use) and 81% will make alcohol education more interactive with group discussions and activities as a result of our training.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Update from Karen - Midlands, South and West |
|
|
|
With attendance at Freshers' Fairs, train the trainer training and introductory sessions, it’s been a busy time this half term!
Students at Strode College, Somerset were really engaged with our resources on alcohol and cannabis and our drink spiking awareness materials and asked loads of brilliant questions.
It was also fantastic to hold a workshop for parents from three schools in Sherborne, Dorset in October, Sherborne Girls and Boys School and The Gryphon covering alcohol, cannabis and vaping. Discussions on the availability of illicit vapes and cannabis edibles via social media were eye opening for many parents and the discussion on how to effectively support their children was illuminating.
We are also forging close links as we develop lessons on wider drug education for secondary schools across Dorset going forward. We have four schools taking part in our pilot: The Thomas Hardye School, The Atlantic Academy, The Woodruffe School and Budmouth. Ensuring that any new materials aimed at reducing experimentation and substance misuse work before they are rolled out is essential (and not done enough!) and we are excited to be working with Bournemouth University and UCL to ensure our interactive and engaging approaches are effective! To find out more do email helena@alcoholeducationtrust.org
|
|
|
|
It’s been wonderful to provide our activity packs with films, scenarios, games and activities to wonderful charities and organisations who work with young people day to day such as The Girls’ Brigade, YMCA, Brunel Group youth workers, Purbeck Education and Early Help Team and Budwood Housing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
As ever, lovely feedback and appreciation of our resources keep us happy!
“Thank you for a great session Karen!” YMCA Brunel Group
“Very good training, very helpful. Great resource.” Budwood Housing
|
|
|
|
Karen also had the pleasure of presenting to the Community Health Ambassadors of the Dorset Race Equality Council to help young people from all races stay safe around alcohol.
If you are based in the Midlands or South West, you can contact Karen on karen@alcoholeducationtrust.org .
|
|
|
|
|
|
Update from Kathryn - North |
|
|
|
Kathryn has delivered ten train the trainer sessions on alcohol and cannabis for the 16 – 25 year age group for Bedspace and A Wilderness Way alone in October!
|
|
|
|
In addition, it was brilliant to deliver a Talk about Alcohol workshop
for 25 staff at City in the Community. The wonderful team work across multiple
projects including BTEC, Foundation Degree and City Girls supporting
young people who aren’t reaching their potential in schools across
Greater Manchester.
|
|
|
|
We’ve also been incredibly busy in East Riding and North
Yorkshire raising awareness of drink spiking.
You can reach Kathryn on kathryn@alcoholeducationtrust.org .
Nationally, we have provided
posters, how to report and support cards, keyrings and drink testing kits to 81 settings including colleges, universities, youth organisations and the police. The
campaign is supported by videos and information on tiktok and Instagram and the
www.life-stuff.org website.
There is a very interesting Channel 4 video on spiking which you might like to watch via https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
|
|
|
|
|
|
We do still have some of our wonderful spiking resources available so if you would like to order some for your setting, please email kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org .
|
|
|
|
|
|
Update from Soraya - London and South East |
|
|
|
Sister System - Tottenham
This Autumn it was great to deliver very positive ‘Train the Trainer’ sessions and workshops with Sister System, a charity that supports girls in care, at risk of care, and care leavers up to the age of 25 years. Many of these young women have been impacted by the consequences of alcohol and drug misuse. The goal of empowering these individuals to break the cycle and succeed is particularly heartening.
|
|
|
|
We had a great opportunity to share our resources with the students of MCPT (Military Preparation Academies) in Croydon and Aldershot. These young people are exploring and preparing for a possible career in the British Military, so awareness of the effects of alcohol or cannabis on their own reputation and that of the organisation they will be joining is key.
They were a diverse group of 16 to 18-year-olds, some who knew very little about alcohol and those who thought they knew! We had a lot of fun testing their knowledge and pouring out ‘drinks’ to truly understand units and the impact on an individual's mind and body.
|
|
|
|
|
|
We continue to work with the Metropolitan Police and their cadets, this time cadets in Ruislip (pictured here) and Southall.
You can contact Soraya via soraya@alcoholeducationtrust.org .
|
|
|
|
|
|
We do have a separate newsletter that details our amazing work across Scotland, in particular with vulnerable young adults, working in close partnership with 5 fantastic charities, Action for Children, FARE, ENABLE, Aberdeen Foyer and Street League. If you would like to receive a copy of our Scottish newsletter, please email kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org to sign up!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Our community engagement work from our wonderful building, Pavilion in the Park, continues to thrive! Over half term we ran a Halloween colouring competition and were overwhelmed with the quantity and quality of the entries, our youngest budding artist being just 21 months old! We’re very grateful to Tesco’s in Dorchester and Asda in Weymouth for providing our prizes.
|
|
|
|
We also run a regular after school art club, which is hugely popular, as well as our monthly senior social, digital support drop in and a fantastic creative clay workshop – again these are made possible through local support from Art in Poundbury, Parkers Estate Agents, Waitrose Dorchester and Dorchester Rotary – so a huge thank you!
New clubs are also running from our café including a weekly chess club, The Poundbury Strollers and a new social prescribing group. Our book swap continues to be hugely popular – and we have a Christmas holiday club for local children again in December as well as a community Christmas lunch.
Finally, our popular monthly supper clubs are back, do email lucy@pipspoundbury.com if you would like to join our PiP newsletter to keep up to date with our local activities
Please do help us fund our community outreach as well as our day to day work by buying our Christmas cards or raffle tickets this year – more detail below!
|
|
|
|
Thanks to the generosity of local artists who are members of Art in Poundbury and our wonderful local printers BCP, we have beautiful Christmas cards for sale this year in aid of our youth charity. The cards are very reasonably priced at £5 per pack of 10, so please support us. Please follow the link Christmas Card Assortment of 10 cards (sumupstore.com) to order and be sure to leave your contact details. Five beautiful designs to choose from!
|
|
|
|
Once again we are selling raffle tickets as part of The Rotary Club Christmas Raffle that benefits local charities. Every £1 raised comes to us and there are wonderful prizes - £500, £250 and £100! WOW! Please do buy tickets, either by popping into our café here at PiP on The Great Field, or through our online shop. Please leave your phone number and an email so we can fill in the stubs for you and contact you if you win! Books of tickets are £5 and can be ordered here: Dorchester Casterbridge Raffle Tickets (sumupstore.com)
|
|
|
|
Help with grants and fundraising at last! |
|
|
|
We are thrilled to welcome Donna Duffy who has joined us as part-time fundraiser. Donna comes with a wealth of experience and has raised £1 million for different charities (not ours yet!) already this year. As demand rises for our support, training, workshops and resources and we cover more topics and a wider age group, ensuring we have the funds to meet needs is essential, so this is wonderful news. If you feel able to support us or would like to propose us to a grant making body, please email donna@alcoholeducationtrust.org
|
|
|
|
|
|
AET recognised in Movement for Good Awards |
|
|
|
We were delighted to be awarded £1000 in the Movement for Good Awards. As these are a result of public nomination, they really are heart warming.
Our CEO Helena commented, "One thousand pounds goes a long way: we can support a school for £150, so that money can help us support eight schools, training teachers and educating young people about alcohol, smoking and vaping."
|
|
|
|
|
|
AET attend Charity Times Awards |
|
|
|
Our CEO Helena was pleased to attend an inspiring evening hearing about the work of so many great charities rewarded at The Charity Times Awards in September. The event is sponsored by Ansvar Insurance and it was a privilege for Helena to be one of their guests together with others from charities including The Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation.
|
|
|
|
|