Drugs and Alcohol
Drugs Prevention Through Youth Work
This document is published for archival/historical purposes. It will not be updated.
This research was carried out between October 1996 and October 1998 and examined the delivery of drugs prevention through youth intervention. It concentrated on a drug prevention programme using a structured education programme or through direct intervention with the community via street-based outreach and detached work.
Title: Drugs prevention through youth work
Authors: Jenni Ward & Tim Rhodes (University of London)
Series: DPAS Briefing paper 12
Number of pages: 4
Date published: 2001
Availability: Download full report 
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Nine centre-based and non centre-based youth projects were included, five of which were detailed case studies. Various research methods were used, and evaluations were carried out on the five case study projects, which involved interviews with 17 project managers, 19 staff and 20 young people. There were also three focus group discussions with young people and observations were made of 16 sessions in which drugs prevention education was delivered.
The study addressed two main questions:
How interventions made directly with young people outside schools can have an impact on their knowledge, attitudes and behaviour; and
How to attract and maintain young people’s interest in such projects.
Good Practice Points
The results of the study showed that Youth Workers are best placed to target youths at high risk of drug abuse. Drug strategies that are mainly reliant on school-based approaches and broad in their targeting approach may fail to employ opportunities for tackling the greatest harms associated with youth drug use.
Detached outreach projects may experience difficulty in making contact and establishing trust with young people if they rely completely on the street as a point for contact. All such projects need to make use of venues such as schools, pubs and nightclubs.
Youth workers need training, support and resources to develop the skills to deliver drugs education to young people. They particularly need training to advise on issues of key interest to young people – the effect of drugs and drug use, and the law.
Both centre-based and non centre-based projects are likely to be most efficient when delivering drugs prevention as one component of youth work with drugs-specific projects targeted to young people at high risk of problematic drug use. Outreach is most efficient when targeted to high-risk groups rather than as a means of primary drugs prevention among young people generally.
Download DPAS Briefing Paper 12 'Drugs prevention through youth work' PDF (300Kb)
Last update: Wednesday, August 27, 2008