Drugs, Life and You

As you may remember from our last newsletter, we have been running three of these courses — in Swindon, with 11-12 year old boys, in Northwood Hills with young people age 11-14, and with a Christian youth group in Sheffield.

This eight-week course helps young people develop life skills to help them manage drug (and other) scenarios, using a variety of games, activities and discussions.

We had not taken this course for a few years, because of the pandemic, so it felt a bit like we were starting again!

What we learnt was:

That it can work very well!
But it doesn't work so well with a group who arrive expecting their usual evening of free choice activities (!)
And that some Christian youth groups like the sessions to have bible studies included (why didn’t we remember that?!)

We have had some fantastic feedback, which we thought you might enjoy reading:

(Confidence week) ‘Thank you, I really needed to learn about this’ (young person)
‘I went home last week and told my mum what I learnt, because she had a job interview – she got the job’ (young person)
Thank you so much, I have learnt so much from you and I am grateful you came (young person)
Thank you for teaching me many skills that will help me (young person)
It was wonderful to sit at the dinner table and listen to my boys speaking so confidently about things that I didn’t know they knew. Clearly, they learnt a lot at the Hope UK sessions, I hope they live up to the teachings! (parent)
My boy tells me the course was interesting and inspiring. He said he thought it was going to just be about drugs, but it was a lot more than that. They did life lessons like decision-making and peer pressure that affects all areas of your life, not just about drugs. (parent)
He was actually sorry that the course ended after just 4 sessions. He liked meeting new people and making new friends. Everyone was cool and supportive. He thinks he will be more confident saying ‘No’ to the kids at school when they want him to get involved in stuff he doesn’t feel comfortable doing. (parent)
My son enjoyed the topics and said the trainers were cool because they were relaxed and not like teachers. (parent)
My son and two other boys who did the course are on the same football team. When I drove them to training they were chatting non-stop about what they learned on the Hope UK Drugs course and it was amazing to hear them trying to recall all of the things they learned. It made me realise how much drugs talk they are exposed to at school, and how useful this course is to give them the knowledge they wouldn’t otherwise have, to help them make the right choices. (parent)
Thank you and your wonder assistants, you were all magnificent. I honestly couldn’t have asked for it to have been run any better. Children and parents were all well pleased. You brought the group together well and kept them engaged, interested and smiling. That’s no mean feat with 12 year olds on a Saturday afternoon. (organiser)