OUR VALUES

Our mission is to equip young people to make drug-free choices.

Our vision is young people having the knowledge and life skills they need not only to make healthy choices regarding drug use, but also be able to transfer these skills into other areas in their lives.

Hope UK Core Principles:

The work we do is informed by best practice.
Equipping young people to make drug-free choices is not about just providing them with information about drugs, it is about helping them develop the skills and knowledge they need to manage situations and circumstances they find themselves in.
We work in a non-judgemental and inclusive manner.
Our work will always be interactive – taking into consideration the fact that different people like to learn in different ways.
We will always work hard to create safe learning environments, considering the needs of the learners we are working with.
We will work with the inviting organisation to plan activities that are suitable and relevant to the groups or individuals we are working with.
We prefer not to do ‘one-off’ activities – unless what we are doing is part of a wider plan implemented by the host organisation.

A note on ‘Best Practice’

The Drug Education Forum developed the following principles, using information from evaluations of drug education and prevention projects from all over the world:

The Principles

Environment: Good drug education is…

Underpinned by a whole school approach
Enhanced by family-based prevention programmes.

Planning: An appropriate curriculum is…

Relevant and responsive to the developmental stage and circumstances of the children and young people
Taught in the context of other personal, social and health issues
Manageable given available resources
Informed by programmes that produce achievable outcomes
Developmental: re-visited, consolidated, and extended throughout childhood and youth
Supported by appropriate training
Evidence based and/or evaluated.

Practice: The educator…

Creates a comfortable classroom climate
Uses interactive teaching styles
Is responsive to different cultural views and realities
Includes a normative component
Keeps up to date with evidence.

Content: The selected materials and activities …

Explore attitudes to drugs and drug users
Provide children and young people with opportunities to develop social skills
Use credible, reliable, and up-to-date sources to explore, contrast, and, where appropriate, support (or challenge) attitudes to self and others, to drugs, to drug use and non-use, and to drug users and non-users
Strengthen protective factors
Minimise risk factors