Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

This report outlines the ‘NE (North East) Choices’ multi-component drugs prevention programme for young people in the North East of England. It describes the development and implementation of the second two years of the programme - the Year Ten and Year Eleven interventions - and reports findings from the evaluation of the complete programme.

The three year intervention combined drama, work with parents, classroom activity, youth work, media and information activities, and the target population was young people aged between 13 -16 years of age as they progressed through school. There were three intervention phases and these were:

• Year Nine - delivered in 1996/97 to a target group aged 13 - 14

• Year Ten - delivered in 1997/98 to a target group aged 14 - 15

• Year Eleven - delivered in 1998/99 to a target group aged 15 - 16.

The aims of the programme were to:

• reduce the prevalence of drug use

• delay the age of start of drug use

• reduce the frequency of drug use among those who use drugs

• reduce mixing of drugs including drugs and alcohol

NE Choices was evaluated at a number of levels including a baseline and three follow-up surveys conducted to examine the potential impact of the programme on drug taking behaviour.

Despite evidence that young people found the programme credible and engaging, the intervention was not associated with any changes in drug taking behaviour. Possible explanations are discussed within the report, including methodological issues, delivery and appropriateness of the target group.

To link directly to the full report click here PDF (1.2 Mb)