Hope UK

In the past year, the nine Educators living in the North East have carried out sessions with:

• Young people
• Church members
• Youth workers
• Parents 

and have also represented Hope UK and carried out educational work at relevant exhibitions.

 Most of the Educators live along the Tyne Valley from Hexham down to the coast.  Their skills and experience include:

• Experienced youth worker and teacher based in Hexham, currently undertaking temporary work in Northumbria
• Experienced college lecturer, trainer and church leader – based in Gateshead
• Occupational therapist with experience of setting up a youth club in her local church
• Former garage owner who now devotes his life to working with at risk young people in a variety of contexts (including Hope UK)
• A professional counsellor/teacher, minister, and youth co-ordinator.
• Head of another local charity, experience of homelessness issues
• Former school teacher, now Divisional Children’s Officer for the Salvation Army, based at Blaydon Children’s Project

Volunteers – even if well-trained – need nurturing and ongoing support to be effective.  Experience has shown that we need a Local Representative (a paid part-time post) to liaise with client groups, funders, etc, as well as meeting requests from daytime groups like schools during ‘office hours’.  Supporting our goal of 30 active Educators in the North East, and providing training for accredited courses and delivering awareness sessions at times when Educators are not available, calls for 7 hours of staff time per week in the first year and our plan is to build up gradually over four years to a total of 21 hours per week.  The first year’s salary and expenses costs for a one-day-per-week post in the first year amount of approx £4,000.

Is there a need for alcohol and drug education in the North East?

The overall cost of alcohol misuse in the region is estimated to be £1billion per year;

• Adults in the North East are more likely to drink heavily than adults in the rest of England;
• There is a higher prevalence of ‘hazardous’ or ‘dependent’ alcohol consumption in the North East than in other English regions;
• There are higher rates of alcohol related deaths in the North East than in the rest of England.

(Alcohol and Health in North East England, North East Public Health Observatory, July 2006)