Prevention activities Session 14 Global Youth Network Workshop Needs Assessment & Programme Planning

Why prevention?  Good idea to avoid problems altogether, eg from experimenting to moving into more dependent patterns of substance abuse  The earlier you start using substances the more problems you have later,  even delaying the start of experimentation is a good result

Remember the risk and protective factors?  Individual (being a boy, being young, having poor personal & social skills, having mental health problems)  Environmental (poor care/ abuse in the family/ community (incl. health & social services), substance use in the family/ community (incl. peers), lack of opportunities in education/ working/ free time, culture that encourages substance use, availability, lack of information)

Prevention activities...  … are aimed at strengthening protective factors and/ or weakening risk factors.  Most protective factors are the mirror image of risk factors.  The same activity that strengthens a protective factor will therefore weaken the corresponding risk factor  So, you can organise all your possible prevention activities according to one of the lists (we will do risk factors)

You cannot address only one factor  The listing of activities is for us keep our mind in order a bit;...  as there is not only one factor that explains substance abuse, there cannot be only one kind of activity.  This has been demonstrated in the case of provision of information: on its own, it does not work, it’s not enough, e.g. HIV/AIDS in Thailand

Addressing lack of information  The older the target group, the better to go through peers  Interactive methods are more effective, even if they reach less people  Info should be scientifically based and accurate: do NOT exaggerate!  Materials should be developed by (or at least tested with) the target group  Materials should NOT promote discrimination of drug users

Addressing individual risk factors  Not much you can do about people being young and being boys  A lot needs to be done to provide appropriate care to young people with mental health problems and eliminate stigma

Addressing poor personal & social skills  Use either teachers or peers (parents appear to be very difficult to involve)  Interactive methods and sound training of educators essential  Activities should be appropriate to the level of development (age)  Join forces with provision of skills against other risky behaviours, the skills are largely the same!

Working with families  Provide shelter/ foster care  Provide information (same rules as for young people!)  Improve parenting skills (not that easy to involve parents/ guardians, but worthwhile)  Provide counselling  Facilitate self-help groups

Addressing the lack of opportunities  Vocational training  Opportunities to engage free time in a way that is constructive imaginative and challenging in sport, theatre, work, social work, fun …  Provide training and resources to health and social services to become youth friendly

Culture  It is very difficult to address a situation where young people identify with a culture that encourages the use of substances  Restricting advertising of licit substances  Using famous people that are role models for young people

Addressing the availability of substances  It is not going to be the answer on its own & you need to be careful not to treat substance abusers as criminals  Have a clear policy developed in advance with the collaboration of everyone w.r.to the use of all substances  Assist in enforcing regulations (eg smoking areas, selling alcohol)  Involve law enforcement officials, if possible, to ensure their collaboration

When do you use what?  The most difficult decision!  It will depend on the unique mixture of risk and protective factors in your community and in your target group (communities are NOT homogeneous), that is why you need to assess the situation well!