Hazel (pictured) will also liaise with other voluntary and statutory groups to find opportunities for the voluntary Drug Educators to use their training, as well as meeting requests from daytime groups like schools during ‘office hours’. 

In the meantime, we continue to support eight existing voluntary Drug Educators in other parts of Yorkshire and the Humber region who are available to work in schools and with youth and parents’ groups to provide interactive drug and alcohol education.

They have carried out drug awareness sessions as part of Care for the Family’s Drug Proof Your Kids course, colleges, YMCA, youth organisations and church groups.

If you would like a drug awareness speaker for your group, please contact Deborah Devine at d.devine@hopeuk.org

Our goal is to support these (and more) Educators with a part-time Project Worker who will be able to to liaise with other voluntary and statutory groups, as well as meeting requests from daytime groups like schools during ‘office hours’.  Recruiting new Educators, 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.  First year salary and support costs are approximately £4,000.

Hope UK is developing its drug awareness and training work in Cornwall while supporting four other trained Drug Educators in other parts of the South West. Clare Vincent, already a trained voluntary Hope UK Drug Educator, began work in July 2007 with the remit of not only carrying out drug and alcohol awareness sessions, but recruiting, helping to train, and supporting new Voluntary Drug Educators in the county.

For the latest Cornwall news, please click here. 

Our vision is to have at least ten Drug Educators in Cornwall as this number will provide the mix of skills and experience required to provide community-based drug education, especially for churches and other voluntary groups in evenings and weekends – when statutory services cannot provide workers. We are hoping to have some who will be able to visit schools and other groups meeting during ‘working hours’.

We would like to thank the following organisations for their support:

Seedbed Cornwall – for funding Clare’s salary.

The Echo Centre in Liskeard for use of premises for training weekends.

Clare’s Bio

Clare was a Voluntary Educator before she became a part-time Project Worker and says, “I became an Educator because I wanted to do something positive to address the problems of alcohol and drug misuse in my community.” She enjoyed meeting other Educators on the training weekends she attended and says, “The care and on-going support from the Training Co-ordinators is excellent.” She also uses the training she received from Hope UK in her community in the context of the Drug Proof Your Kids® Parents’ course.

Clare loves being able to work with adults and children through Hope UK. The interactive drug awareness sessions raise awareness about alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs and enable young people to make drug free choices as well as helping those with responsibility for them do their own drug prevention work.

Married, with two children, Clare, a former Secondary school teacher, leads a busy life and enjoys cooking, crafts, walking and boating in the summer. Her family is involved in the local Torch Trust for the Blind Fellowship Group and she and her husband are House Communitygroup leaders. 

County Links 

Cornwall Drug and Alcohol Action Team (information about statutory and other treatment and counselling services etc)

Ann Galbraith is the Project Worker for Southampton, and Poole and Bournemouth.  Her task is to recruit teams of ten volunteers in each of these cities to be trained as Drug Educators.  As a trained Drug Educator herself, Ann is available to undertake drug awareness sessions with children’s, young people’s and parents’ groups.  Contact her at a.galbraith@hopeuk.org if you would like a speaker or are interested in becoming a Drug Educator.

There are currently 22 trained Drug Educators in other parts of the South East (not including London) available to provide drug awareness sessions in schools and with children’s, youth and parents’ groups.  Training can also be provided for youth workers and family workers.  If you would like to book a speaker, please e-mail d.devine@hopeuk.org

In May 2011, Hope UK appointed Dr David Bass to be our part-time Local Project Worker in the North East of England.  He says, “I worked for 10 years in challenging secondary schools in both Nottingham and the North East. For a couple years I coordinated PSHE for years 7-9 (11-14). I found it disturbing that a significant proportion of the pupils had smoked, been drunk (some regularly) and maybe even taken drugs, some at Primary age! It was even more worrying that a significant majority really had no idea of the dangers and effects of drugs and alcohol!”

David’s role is to recruit a team of ten voluntary Drug Educators in the Newcastle area where he lives so that they can be trained as Drug Educators able to deliver drug and alcohol awareness sessions in their own communities.  With many services being cut to the bone at the present time, there is plenty of scope for volunteer effort in the area of drug prevention.  He will also liaise with schools and statutory and other voluntary groups to let them know about the work of Hope UK.

Hope UK has four trained voluntary Drug Educators in Gateshead, Blaydon and North Shields available to provide drug and alcohol awareness sessions in schools and with youth and parents’ groups.  Contact David at d.bass@hopeuk.org if you would like to know more.

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)