AET newsletter for teachers and other professionals

Spring Term, February 2019, Ed 41

We hope you've had a lovely break over half term!

As the reality of PSHE becoming a statutory subject comes closer, the importance of good planning and feeling confident in having the right resources in place in school grows.

You will find everything you need for alcohol education for Key Stage 3 and 4, by topic, ability and by year group FREE of charge via www.alcoholeducationtrust.org or by emailing kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org

Our resources are externally evaluated and accredited not only to meet OFSTED and DfE requirements, but to effectively raise the age that children choose to drink. Take a look via: https://alcoholeducationtrust.org/teacher-area/evaluation-case-studies/

Even more importantly, for most places in England and Scotland, our wonderful regionally based school and parent coordinators are available to come and train PSHE staff and to demonstrate our games, films, activities and our award winning Teacher Workbook. For the North of England, please contact kathyrn@alcoholeducationtrust.org, for The Midlands, South and West, please contact karen@alcoholeducationtrust.org, for Scotland contact brian@alcoholeducationtrust.org and for all other areas please email Kate via kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org

Welcome to Karen Perryman - AET Coordinator for the South, West and Midlands

We are delighted to welcome Karen Perryman to the team! Karen is working to support schools and youth organisations across the region and is available to deliver teacher training sessions and parent talks.

About Karen
Karen has a wealth of experience in PSHE, having trained as a secondary school teacher but since 2004, she worked for a children’s health education charity delivering workshops and training on Physical and Emotional Health and Wellbeing, drugs and alcohol throughout the South and South West. Engaging young people in interactive sessions about emotional health and discussing complex issues around choices and risk taking in an age appropriate way was a large part of her role. So too was hosting sessions for parents and carers.

Karen comments, “I feel honoured to be entrusted with this wonderful role. The Alcohol Education Trust provides engaging, interactive, evidence based resources and sessions for young people and their teachers. Empowering young people to ensure harm minimisation around alcohol is an extremely important thing to do and the AET do it superbly. As it’s known that parents and carers have a huge influence on young people, the sessions that have been developed for them are invaluable. I am really looking forward to the new challenges set before me.” You can contact Karen on 07706 441923 or via karen@alcoholeducationtrust.org.

NICE Consultation open on alcohol education in schools

Please take a moment to read through the NICE guidance for alcohol education in schools via: https://www.nice.org.uk/Guidance/InDevelopment/GID-NG10030/documents

Please do mention us if you use and value our resources!

Awards news

We are delighted to have been selected as a finalist in the 2019 Education Resources Awards in the Secondary Resource including ICT category. Our resources were highly commended in the 2017 awards. We will keep you posted... the winner of the category will be announced on the 22nd March!

New activity box of games and resources designed to be used in ‘stand alone’ settings without a formal lesson plan

Due to the increasing use of our games and activities in youth clubs, children’s homes, small groups and on a one to one basis, we have redesigned our games, picture and story led activities and DVD to sit separately from our Teacher Workbook for the first time. They can still be ordered together of course. Containing a range of games from ‘consequences’, to ‘higher harms' discussion cards, 'emoji equations', a DVD of four films and special activities for children with learning difficulties, it is a ‘must have’ for engaging, interactive alcohol education. Priced at just £45 it sits alongside all our free resources available online and in print form. To place your order, email kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org .

We do have grant funding for schools and organisations supporting vulnerable and looked after children as well those with SEN for this resource. To see if you qualify, please email kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org

Plans are coming together for AET's exciting new office space – will you help us move from a garden garage to a sustainable office café and community space?

2019 is the 10th Anniversary of The Alcohol Education Trust and we have been given the wonderful opportunity to build a subsidised café, community/training space and office on The Great Field at Poundbury, Dorset - an area with 33% social housing which will have a Parkour area for teenagers as well as an all weather sports pitch, an outside gym and one mile walking/running track. Work is due to start on the building in Autumn this year and we are hoping it will be ready by Spring 2020!

This will provide us with an invaluable training space for schools and organisations across the South West as well as a bespoke office for our staff. The AET will be providing public toilets for those using the park and, to ensure that the building is revenue generating, a café forms part of the cricket style pavilion building. The café will be family and young people orientated and will offer youth employment and training opportunities.

We are launching a crowd funding appeal in early March and will really appreciate you giving just a little – the more engagement and support we have, the more likely we are to get match funding – up to £10,000 worth! We will send out more information shortly – but please spread the word!!!

Compulsory Health and Relationships Education

The health, relationships (primary) and ‘relationships and sex’ aspects of PSHE education will be compulsory in all schools from 2020. This will create an excellent opportunity for schools to build on the work they already do in PSHE and we're here to support you with our range of easy-to-use effective, evidence-based and evaluated resources. 

The Department for Education has recently launched its statutory guidance on health, RSE and relationships education which you can see here . This sets out what schools must cover from 2020. It is still a draft but no significant alterations are expected.

Pilotlight

As a charity that is growing and facing change, the mentoring of our CEO and her team by business professionals through an organisation called Pilotlight has been invaluable over the last year.

This has involved 12 face to face sessions with board level executives from top companies such as HIS Markit and Morgan Stanley. This has helped us refine our 3 to 5 year strategic plan, to look at succession and our fundraising strategy.

'For such busy people to show such an interest and enthusiasm for our work has been so heartening as well as helpful,’ commented Helena Conibear, ‘I’d recommend the support to any small charity like ourselves that is scaling up and perhaps facing ‘growing pains', it has been enjoyable too!''

Free training offer for Hertfordshire schools

Thanks to the support of the Herts Community Foundation, we are delighted to be able to offer our full Talk about Alcohol resource packs and training free of charge to schools across Hertfordshire.

The award-winning resource packs include lesson plans, implementation advice, a DVD and 60 pictorial rich activity cards all indexed by subject and year group. Attendees will receive a full pack of resources worth £90 to take home (one per school). You can view the resources via www.alcoholeducationtrust.org and the accompanying online student learning zone via www.talkaboutalcohol.com.

In partnership with Herts for Learning, we will be offering a Talk about Alcohol teacher training session on 11th March from 4-5.30pm at Dame Alice Owens School, Dugdale Hill Lane, Potters Bar EN6 2DU. This workshop will demonstrate the interactive resources on alcohol and the law, alcohol and its effects, units and guidelines and staying safe as well as bespoke approaches for more vulnerable children. PSHE leads or tutors will leave equipped with a range of activities enabling them to deliver effective and enjoyable alcohol education for 11-18 year olds. To find out more or to register your interest, please email kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org . Places available on a first come first serve basis!

Have your say on our Teacher Newsletter!

We're always keen to hear your thoughts on what we do and are looking for feedback about our Teacher Newsletter. We would be really grateful if you could spare a couple of minutes to complete our brief survey via https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/FT5CFFH . This will help us ensure the newsletter is as useful and informative as possible! 

Testimonials

We have received some wonderful testimonials recently from schools who we have supported. You can find a selection of these below. Please do let us know what you think of our resources; it is so useful to know what we are doing well and what we can do even better!

“We sought the advice and expertise of the AET to speak to our parent body regarding their concerns surrounding their teenagers’ approach to drinking. After an initial internet search, the AET website was both informative and innovative and we quickly made contact with the team. The AET supplied our PSHE department with a bank of resources to complement the online treasure trove!  For schools looking for cost-effective resourcing, the AET is a wonderful hub of activity and both students and staff have benefitted enormously”.

Berkhamsted School

"I have been using the AET resources for a number of years and am really impressed with how comprehensive and well constructed they are. It is a rare thing to find an organisation who really understands how to reach young people in different year groups effectively. AETs resources are pitched brilliantly for different age groups and the activities are just the sort of active and engaging activities which make for effective PSHE.

My students enjoy the activities and demonstrate really good understanding of the issues at the end of their lessons. It is really helpful in planning a curriculum for specialists and non-specialist teachers that the resources are so detailed and there is such a lot of really good, clear advice for teachers on the website and in the resource book. I can set these lessons confident that my staff can teach informative, accurate and thoughtful lessons which encourage critical thinking and challenge stereotypes.

Given the lack of funding in schools it is also worth mentioning that the fact that their resources are free to use is vitally important to schools. I can't recommend them highly enough."

Chew Valley School, Bristol

You can read a variety of testimonials relating to all aspects of our work on our website via https://alcoholeducationtrust.org/about-aet/testimonials/ .

Research Round-up

Evidence continues to mount on the effect of early and heavy drinking on teenagers long term life chances

Although youth drinking continues to decline across Britain, last year, teenage girls in England, Scotland and Wales were still in three of the top six spots in a World Health Organisation league table of binge drinking across 36 European nations. What might seem like an obscure study this adds to our understanding of how early binge drinking could affect the brain permanently, so if we can push up the age that our teenagers start drinking whole drinks or engaging in social drinking outside of the home, this would make a real difference. Binge drinking isn’t heathy for any of us of course!

Find out more via 
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6717179/Binge-drinking-rewires-teenagers-brain-leaving-risk-depression.html

More on the associations between Anxiety, Depression, and Alcohol Use in Adolescent Girls – a confusing picture

Depression, anxiety, and alcohol misuse predict adverse social, academic, and emotional outcomes, and their relations to one another increase during adolescence-particularly in girls. This study examined reciprocal associations between anxiety severity and alcohol use, as well as between depression severity and alcohol use, in adolescent girls.

There were 2,100 female participants (57.1% Black, 42.9% White) assessed annually between ages 13 and 17. Girls self-reported depression severity, anxiety severity, and frequency of alcohol use.

Sufferers of higher depression modestly increased the likelihood of subsequent alcohol use from ages 13 to 17. However, girls who drank at that age suffered slightly less from depression severity at ages 14 and 16; associations were nonsignificant in other lagged associations. Anxiety severity and alcohol use were not consistently associated. Levels of drinking in this study weren’t well defined into light or binge, which would have shown clearer findings.

Source: Longitudinal Reciprocal Associations Between Anxiety, Depression, and Alcohol Use in Adolescent Girls. Schleider JL, Ye F, Wang F, Hipwell AE, Chung T, Sartor CE. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2018 Nov 25. doi: 10.1111/acer.13913.

Mental health of children and young people in England, 2017: Behaviours, lifestyles and identities

The results of a survey on the mental health of children and young people in England  found that 12.8% of 5 to 19 year olds had at least one mental disorder when assessed in 2017.

Survey participants were asked about their alcohol consumption. 24.2% of all 11 to 16 year olds had tried an alcoholic drink, with rates similar in boys and girls. 20.8% of 11 to 16 year olds reported drinking monthly or less often, making up the majority of those who had drank. 79.6% of 17 to 19 year olds had tried an alcoholic drink, with similar rates in boys and girls. 46.0% reported drinking monthly or less often and 31.6% drank on a weekly or daily basis.

Rates of drinking were higher in young people with a mental disorder.

Check out the following links if you'd like more detail on this:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-of-children-and-young-people-in-england/2017/2017#summary

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/health-survey-for-england/2017

Substance misuse treatment for young people: statistics 2017 to 2018

Alcohol and drug treatment data for young people from PHE’s national drug treatment monitoring system (NDTMS) were published in December. The report presents information about young people under the age of 18 who received specialist substance misuse treatment in England between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2018.

Cannabis remained the most common drug by far which young people came to treatment for. 88% of young people said they had a problem with this drug. The next most commonly reported problematic substance was alcohol. 7,206 young people were in treatment for alcohol problems (46%). The number of young people receiving help for alcohol problems continued to steadily decline from the peak in 2008-09 when 16,047 were treated for alcohol.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/substance-misuse-treatment-for-young-people-statistics-2017-to-2018

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

Brian Gibson, Director for Scotland

brian@alcoholeducationtrust.org

Karen Perryman

karen@alcoholeducationtrust.org 

Kate Hooper, Schools Coordinator

kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org