AET newsletter for professionals and teachers

Autumn Term, November 2018, Ed 40

Welcome to our last newsletter of 2018. Can it really be time to start thinking about the Christmas holidays and enjoying a well-deserved break? We have had a busy couple of months with the launch of our Scottish office and Alcohol Awareness Week. Read on to find out more!

Alcohol Awareness Week 2018

19th-25th November was Alcohol Awareness Week. This is an important week for us and we were busy supporting schools and organisations with our resources and a taking part in a range of activities including:

• Supporting a young people's art workshop in connection with Ryde Community Alcohol Partnership
• Delivering a teacher training session at Lakewood School, Hampshire
• Holding an exhibition stand and student workshop at Weymouth College's Alcohol Awareness event in Dorset.

We'd love to heart what you got up to during the week so please do get in touch via kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org!

Theatre in Education – a new outreach for The Alcohol Education Trust

To mark Alcohol Awareness Week, The Alcohol Education Trust worked in great depth with the largest school based sixth form in England at The Thomas Hardye school. The Thomas Hardye school is a non selective comprehensive mixed school for 13 – 18 year olds. There are approximately 800 students in the 6th form, and thanks to a grant from Tesco Bags of Help, we were able to offer an immersive drama day for Year 12 students in Performing Arts and Theatre Studies , run by Arts Council Funded The Fluid Motion Theatre Company.

As part of the weeks activities to mark Alcohol Awareness Week:

• Members of The Student Union were trained to talk to other sixth form students and to host an information stand during the week in the sixth form centre.
• A sixth form parent advice session was held for the parent  focus group with an emphasis on supporting teenagers as they leave the security of school and look towards travelling and heading off to college, university or first jobs. One parent commented, 'Helena covered many aspects of alcohol use...it was a lively, interactive meeting which raised our awareness and demolished several misconceptions and assumptions. We felt it was an hour very usefully spent and came away armed with...plenty to think about. We would heartily encourage any parent who missed the talk this time to catch it next time around.'
• The drama students put on a sketch based on a letter to myself now from 30 year old me on the pressures facing teenagers around alcohol and the five things about alcohol to 400 Year 12 students. One of the performing students commented that it was “liberating to perform such impactful drama” to their peers.
• The AET followed this with advice for sixth formers on going out safely, festivals, drink spiking, leaving home, travelling and gap years, understanding consent and relevant areas of the law.
• Year 12 tutors and staff will also receive resources and training in how to support sixth formers through transition.
• Around 800 sixth former students were given the opportunity to attend the evening performance of 'Rum in The Gravy Boat' by The Fluid Motion Theatre Company. This performance was also open to the public through Dorchester Arts and received excellent reviews such as ‘brilliant and powerful’, 'very moving and thought provoking‘, 'enjoyed the humour and thought the message was extremely powerful’, 'enlightening and informative’.

Ms Ullah, Deputy Headteacher, commented: 'Alcohol Awareness Week was carefully designed to provide useful guidance and promote wider thinking around alcohol. This resulted in some serious ‘myth busting’ with our students realising that perceived social norms around teenage alcohol consumption were wholly inaccurate.

Students have commented that it was great to know that most young people drink alcohol responsibly.   The Alcohol Educational Trust pitched each of the sessions and the assembly perfectly in order to engage audiences but also to provide vital information and helpful tips for the future.

The feedback received for ‘Rum in the Gravy Boat’ was phenomenal with both staff and students commenting that it was thought provoking yet humorous doing a wonderful job at showing the difficulties for young people that have parents dependent on alcohol. A hugely worthwhile project all round.'

If you would like to organise a similar event for your school, or be involved with our sixth form transition work, please email kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org .

Launch of Scotland office

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve established a Scottish office, kindly hosted by The Wise Group, in Glasgow City Centre. Our vision is to strengthen the effectiveness of our work in Scotland by establishing a local office with a dedicated trainer to support schools and youth organisations nationally.

We would like to welcome Brian Gibson to the AET team. Brian is the Director for Scotland and is leading our work across the country. Brian commented: 'I am thrilled to be part of this exciting development and I really look forward to working with schools and communities in Scotland to introduce the ‘Talk about Alcohol' programme. Our evidence based intervention will equip children in Scotland with the knowledge and skills to make safer, more responsible and informed choices around alcohol.'

Brian can be contacted via brian@alcoholeducationtrust.org if you'd like to order a FREE copy of the bespoke Scottish workbook or book staff training for next year (just an hour is needed.) You can also download the Scottish workbook here: http://alcoholeducationtrust.org/download-teacher-workbook-scotland/

Our CEO Helena commented, “The AET is a charity dedicated to reducing alcohol related harm for under 18’s across the UK, and currently we already support 90 schools in Scotland. Our goal is to engage children of all abilities and backgrounds before they begin drinking, helping them build resilience skills, to know how to avoid and resist risky situations and to look after themselves and each other in a variety of settings."

2019 is the 10th Anniversary of the Alcohol Education Trust and we are very grateful to Foundation Scotland and others for enabling us to offer our award-winning and highly evidenced Talk about Alcohol schools programme and training to schools in Scotland.

Football Club development

It’s been a very exciting time extending our stream of work to northern football clubs, which has expanded from the partnership we developed with Manchester United Foundation earlier this year.  

Kathryn was delighted to deliver a training session at Burnley FC around our full SEND resource. Staff who attended work for Burnley FC in the community on a variety of programmes such as ‘It's Your Turf’ - a package which incorporates offending behaviour work and education with a holistic approach to tackling violence displayed by young people.

In the New Year, we are looking forward to working in partnership with Middlesbrough FC who run a variety of programmes for vulnerable young people which cover social inclusion, sports participation, education and health. We will be supporting their programmes such as ‘Stepping Up’ which aims to provide a positive catalyst to better prepare children stepping up from primary to secondary school.

We are also supporting Everton FC’s ‘Safe Hands’ and ‘Breathing Space’ projects with our full resource and training.

Safe Hands is a five-year project that targets young offenders in the Merseyside area, aiming to help them integrate back into society after leaving secure care by offering them opportunities that they may never have considered as options before. The scheme will support around 150 young people aged 15-21, utilising education, sport, media and the arts, to help get them back on their feet and into training, employment or further education.

Breathing Space is delivered by the charity’s youth engagement team and is accessible for 14-19-year-olds who are either currently in care or at risk of entering the care system.

Excellent testimonials have been received around this, such as ‘The training our staff undertook with Kathryn was great. She was very knowledgeable and was able to field any questions we had throughout. The resources provided will allow our staff to educate the young people we work with every day on a very important subject.’

This stream is continuing to expand, with meetings and training booked in for Liverpool FC and a Talk about Alcohol session for Rochdale FC’s NCS group of students organised.

Goodbye and thank you to Helen!

We are very sad to be losing Helen Dougan, our Regional Coordinator for the South East, at the end of the year. Helen has been with us since 2015 and has worked closely with schools and organisations across the South East. She has taken a lead in our work supporting pupils with SEN and has been a key part in our support of The Be Your Best Foundation's Rock Challenge events. Helen has also helped develop our work with Looked After Children and has worked with numerous children's homes across Hampshire. We are very sorry to see Helen go and wish her all the very best for the future as a Public Health Commissioner!

AET resources comprise of www.alcoholeducationtrust.org and www.talkaboutalcohol.com, a Teacher Workbook, booklets ‘Alcohol and You’ for 15yrs+ and ‘Talking to Your Kids About Alcohol’ parent and carer guide. 

We also offer teacher CPD workshops and parent information talks.

For further information on any of the above please contact
Helena Conibear, Founder, Director helena@alcoholeducationtrust.org
Kathryn Arnott-Gent, Parent and Schools Coordinator - N Region kathryn@alcoholeducationtrust.org
Helen Dougan, SE Region & SEND Coordinator hdougan@alcoholeducationtrust.org
Kate Hooper, Schools Coordinator kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org