Want to Stop Young People Making Harmful Choices?

Aim

We know that education has the power to change behaviour. Enable us to empower 20,000 young people with the tools to make a difference.

Stop a child harming themselves or others mentally or physically through the abuse of drugs, alcohol, knives or engaging in hate crimes.

We have set a target to work with over 400 partner organisations and 20,000 young people annually. Can you help us reach that goal?

The core of our work is getting children to realise the risks to themselves & others, around their physical and emotional health.  Here are some comments from young people about what they have learnt on our programmes:

• Don't let people pressure you into doing something
• Be aware of my surroundings and choices I make
• How to be safe when someone has a knife
• How much pressure/stress can affect another person
• The difference between harmful and healthy drugs
• Making friends, gave me confidence
• Know how to communicate better
• I'm putting my hand up more
• I talk to the teacher more

We are Life Skills Education Charity

We know that education has the power to change behaviour. 

That is why we believe all young people should have access to the tools they need to grow and thrive.  We have developed a range of programmes designed to help young people make better choices around these issues. Our trainers have their own stories and experiences to draw upon, giving them the empathy to deliver materials around these subjects confidently.  They can help equip young people with the tools to deal with these issues; school staff, parents, and students tell us about our impact on their confidence, their ability to assess risk and the benefit of having this knowledge at the time of their transition into secondary school.

We believe all young people should have access to the tools to grow and thrive.  We aim to do this by:

• Developing and delivering a suite of programmes that use our SKILL Decision-Making Model, a tool to help young people think about their choices and the consequences they have on themselves and others.
• Empowering young people with the confidence to open up meaningful conversations around tricky subjects with their parents, schools and broader support networks.
• Creating more resilient communities with improved health outcomes by reducing the effects of substance misuse on people and shared spaces. 

We do this by talking openly with them in a safe space and getting them to discuss how they feel and think about those issues.  We try to get them to find solutions themselves, with guidance from us (and the DAaRT Crew in the Life Skills Primary programme ↓) along the way.

The Difference We Make

We have independent evaluations and feedback, which have brought about data and stats showing the positive results of our work.  This data is gathered from young people, parents/carers and the schools and community groups that we work with and is available on our website, https://lifeskillseducation.co.uk.  Here, we'd like to talk about the wider impact of our work.

Safer, Happier Young People

• Children make safer decisions, reducing the risk of them coming to harm.
• More confident young people, prepared for their transition into secondary school.
• More considerate young people, thinking about difference and how their actions can affect others.

 Safer Spaces for All

• Shared spaces are cleaner, nicer, safer and less affected by the misuse of drugs, alcohol, knife and hate crimes.  In some communities, this could be helping towards breaking generations of drug and alcohol misuse.
• Safer spaces to play outside and be safe, allowing young people to socialise with peers away from home and their phones.  (The image below is of Nitrous Oxide (laughing) gas canisters found outside of a school where we work.)

Facilitating Partnership and Engagement

• We work in partnership with schools and other partner agencies who recognise the need for an effective drug, alcohol and resilience education programme.
• Our resources help teachers and community leaders, who are given the resources to engage their young people in tricky subjects that they may not have in-depth knowledge of.
• Our team, from our trainers to our trustees, comprises a diverse group of people from a wide range of backgrounds.  You can meet them here.

Why it Matters

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 768 young people aged between 15 and 19 died from drug misuse last year, and 11,013 were in contact with alcohol and drug treatment services. The most common vulnerability reported by young people starting treatment was the early onset of substance use (73%), which means the young person started using substances before age 15. The total combined cost of alcohol misuse and its wider implications is almost £25 billion per year.

• There are over 300,000 young people under the care of at least one parent undergoing treatment for some form of alcohol or drug dependency.
• Drug misuse poisoning deaths have increased by nearly 80% since 2012.
• Hospital admissions due to drug dependency, drug-related mental and behaviour disorders and misuse poisonings are 5-6 times higher in the most deprived areas.

We need to tackle these issues before they present themselves and help young people avoid the risky decisions that are ultimately so costly.

...And Finally

What do parents say?

“I have a 30-year-old daughter who did the Life Skills programme 19 years ago. Her decision-making skills, the foundations of which she learnt on the programme, have kept her safe ever since.  I am confident the programme has evolved to meet the current needs of children growing up now, like my youngest, who is 8.  This issue is critical to me because I have seen first-hand the effects alcoholism and smoking-related illnesses can have on a family and how avoidable they can be with good quality education at the right age.”

“Really impressed with the confidence this programme has helped my daughter find. She has discussed lots of what she has been learning, but more importantly, her friends have been chatting regularly and openly about parts of the book.”

“The Life Skills programme has allowed us to have some good conversations with my son on some subject areas, which we would have found difficult to raise with him.”

This project successfully funded on 29th March 2023