Eric Carlin’s Blog

The Ofsted report today that describes how many teenagers are misusing alcohol and other (for them) illegal drugs reinforces Mentor’s ongoing case for more and better prevention activities, starting as early as possible. This does not mean just drugs education but must include properly joined-up activities which improve young people’s aspirations and ability to resist pressure to use drugs.

It was also noticable that young people expressed great concern about issues such as bullying. Drug misuse prevention activities must encourage young people to thrive and have aspirations, to value themselves and to contribute to society. By combatting issues such as bullying, we can enable this to happen. We will also see reductions in other anti-social behaviours.

For Mentor, the fact that young people are often more worried about bullying is no surprise. Within our alcohol project we interviewed young people about what they thought was leading younger and younger people to misuse alcohol. They told us very clearly that they were worried about being bullied and fitting in, with the transition period from primary to secondary school being the most worrying time.

The answer therefore is holistic prevention, reinforcing and encouraging healthy and social behaviours and responsibilities, not “Just say no”.