Eric Carlin’s Blog

I went to a meeting called by the Home Office last week to give initial feedback on the consultation findings. It was good that they were opening up for us to hear their thoughts so far and to contribute to the strategy’s development. However, the findings and proposals have not yet been to Ministers and ideas may yet change. Next steps after this meeting will include: 

• Ongoing stakeholder engagement
• Final drafting of the new strategy in January 2008
• Implementation discussions from February 2008
• New strategy in place by April 2008 – 10-year strategy with 3-year action plans

 In relation to the consultation, Mentor UK had four separate inputs as follows: 

• We provided a formal written submission, following the official template.
• I was 1 of 20 national stakeholders interviewed by Ipsos Mori.
• Our Youth Involvement Project held a special meeting and Andrew Brown and Susi Farnworth wrote up the findings and went to meet with officials at the Department for Children, Schools and Families to feed in.
• As hosting organisation and members of the Drug Education Forum and with myself as current Chair, we contributed to the Forum’s response.

 My conclusions There was much aspiration that fits very well with Mentor’s aims.  Mentor is very keen on are developing quality standards for drug prevention and we also want to ensure that young people have an ongoing input to the strategy’s implementation.  When the new strategy is launched we would like to see these included in the key objectives, plans and targets to achieve the aspirations. We would also want to see a clear presentation of the role of the prevention voluntary sector and how it would be funded. Key themes that I heard were that: There has been progress but that there is still much to be done. There are still around 330,000 problematic drug users. Also, progress is often not recognised by the public.  Areas for improvement include work on prevention, with the most “at risk” groups, covering gaps in the evidence base and using evidence that we do have. Priorities should include: 

• To help young people avoid drug problems in the first place
• Fast-track referrals to treatment
• Disrupting local supply
• Streamlining administration

 …all supported by 

• More active community engagement
• Improved information and research
• Better communications

 Key themes for young people should include: 

• Reducing misuse
• Expanding the prevention agenda to include preventing school failure and anti-social behaviour and encouraging aspiration
• Protecting children of drug misusing parents
• Focussing on vulnerable children and families
• Building knowledge of effective prevention

 A new package for families should include: 

• Maximising their protective role
• Helping pregnant drug misusers
• Helping parents in treatment develop their parenting skills
• Early identification of “at risk” families

 The prevention agenda should be “mainstreamed”, to include strengthening the role of schools from an early age and youth services. There should be an increased emphasis on identifying early risk factors for drug problems rather than assuming its inevitability and only taking action after use has already started. The FRANK information campaign will continue and will consider its role in alcohol misuse prevention. 

Young people’s treatment services will also aim to improve, in line with evidence.