Guiding teenagers away from risky behaviour
An initiative is helping to prevent young people from Forth Valley getting involved in alcohol abuse, smoking and drug taking.
It does so by challenging their perceptions about how common these activities are amongst their classmates.
This approach, originally researched and developed in the United States, has been adapted for use within secondary schools across Forth Valley.
It was trialled with first- second- and third-year pupils in Wallace High School, Alva Academy, Balfron High School, Denny High School and Falkirk High School, and is set to be used in other Forth Valley secondary schools.
The approach involves asking young people if they have been involved in a range of activities such as drinking alcohol, using drugs or smoking in the last month.
It then asks them to record how many of their classmates they think have taken part in these activities during the same period.
Pupils then get together to analyse the results which show young people tend to overestimate how many of their classmates are taking part in risky behaviour.
They also show that the majority of young people are not actually smoking, drinking alcohol or taking drugs and that, rather than this being the norm, only a very small minority of local young people actually engage in these activities.
Pupils then take part in three lessons which focus on helping young people understand why reality can be very different from perception and how this can affect the choices that they make.
An NHS Forth Valley spokesperson said: “Participating in the project has been shown to prevent and reduce harm as the majority of young people who aren’t involved in any risky behaviour feel less peer pressure to get involved in the future.
“Those young people who were involved in these activities may have been doing so believing that they were no different from anyone else. This would help explain the significant drop in this behaviour when the survey was repeated, with the same pupils, six months later.
“Removing pressure from this group to‘fit in’ with a majority that, in reality, does not exist is key to the project’s success.”
The most recent evaluation which covered 84 third-year pupils (aged 14) and 109 second year pupils (aged 13) at three secondary schools in Forth Valley showed that among the minority who were engaged in risky behaviour, smoking rates fell by 64 per cent from 11 to four, alcohol use by 45 per cent (from 20 to 11), cannabis use by 12 per cent (from eight to seven) and use of new psychoactive substance by 50 per cent (from two to one).
NHS Forth Valley lead health promotion officer Theresa Campbell said:“There is also enormous scope to apply this approach to all sorts of behaviour. It also helps reduce harm in those young people who are already involved in these activities because working with them, before risk behaviour become established, helps motivate them to make the decision to change.”
Interest has also been expressed in using the programme within other settings, including colleges campuses.