Last year eighty-six charitable Trusts and Foundations, and companies, gave  support for Hope UK’s work.  A list is available on request.

The recession, combined with the ending (at the beginning of 2009) of a major Government grant after twelve years of continuous funding, served to reduce Hope UK’s income last year by over a half.  Steps were taken to reduce expenditure, including three redundancies, two retirements, a reduction in office space and other economy measures.   Our ‘step change’ plans to recruit and train 1,000 Drug Educators nationwide have not been abandoned, but it is clear that, with reduced staffing levels, the time period over which this will be achieved has had to be extended.

Despite the difficult circumstances, we were able to increase the number of drug prevention sessions undertaken by 7% (compared to 2008). We also introduced new accredited training for our Educators, adding training in ‘detached’ drug education. This means that Educators can now undertake drug prevention work in a wide variety of settings, both formal and informal.

 Please contact Marolin Watson if you would like further information about our work or any of the following projects:

• Voluntary Educator and local representative training costs (multiples of £750) – An ‘average’ Educator reaches over 500 children and young people each year. Training each one costs £750 as shown by the table below. A £3,750 grant would enable five individuals to start reaching children and young people as well as those adults responsible for them. More information about the training scheme can be found here.

• ICT Equipment (£6,000) – enabling young people to make drug-free choices is dependent on effective training and support for voluntary Drug Educators. In turn, this requires Hope UK’s support service to be first class. These are greatly assisted by good equipment, whether it be for drug awareness presentations (eg, PC projector) or paying our bills (Finance Team computers).   ICT adds value to Hope UK and £6,000 will finish equipping our staff with flat screens (more effective use of desk space means more efficient working); pay for this year’s replacement kit (computers do get old!); and provide another PC projector and laptop for use in drug education sessions.

Without these, more time will be wasted on dealing with breakdowns and cluttered desks when this could be spent on education and outreach. A new projector and laptop will mean more people can benefit during drug awareness and training sessions.

• Capacity Building (£15,000) – A £15,000 grant from the Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund to ‘build the capacity of the UK Church to do drug education’ proved invaluable in persuading organisations to invite our Educators to work with them and in the recruitment of more Educators. It enabled us to mount a twelve-month programme which involved literature, exhibitions, and publicity. A similar programme for another twelve months would yield benefits in terms of more work for our growing number of Educators as well as more recruits to train. 
• Regional Development (£12,400 pa each including all costs) – Regional Representatives are responsible for developing our work across a ‘regional’ area. They help recruit, train and support voluntary Educators besides representing us to local/regional groups. This is a role specifically designed to enable the regionalisation/localisation processes required in our step change strategy.