National Award for Derby's Alcohol Education Programme

Derby’s pioneering ‘Bottle It’ peer alcohol education programme has won a national award from an influential charity striving to prevent drug and alcohol abuse and promote the health and well-being of children and young people.

The ‘Bottle It’ programme, which has been devised by Derby Community Safety Partnership and NHS Derby City under the Healthy Schools initiative, has been recognised by Mentor UK under its bi-annual  CHAMP Awards for its work within four pilot secondary schools in the city which is now being offered to all schools across the city.

It is one of three programmes nationally who each receive a £10,000 cash award to support their further development and up to £10,000 worth of consultancy support in the  CHAMP Awards which were judged by panels of children.

Andrew Brown, Director of Programmes at Mentor UK and Chair of the Judging Panel said: “With 150 young people turning up at A&E every day of the year as a result of alcohol, we believe that prevention is better than cure.

“Therefore we were delighted to receive hundreds of applications for the Champ Awards this year from projects determined to make a difference in the lives of children and young people.

“Bottle It is one of these projects that really does help to protect our youth from the harm that alcohol misuse can cause – both now and in their future lives.”

‘Bottle It’ was launched two years ago as a peer alcohol education project and has run successfully at Bemrose, Sinfin, Merrill and Chellaston schools where nearly 200 year ten pupils were recruited and trained as peer mentors.

The Peer Mentors have delivered lessons about the dangers of alcohol misuse to year eight pupils in their own schools and have also been involved in theatre workshops that have formed part of each schools’ welcome programme for Year 6 pupils in their feeder primary schools.

Michelle Slater, Derby Community Safety Partnership’s Young Person’s Commissioning Lead, who has been involved in ‘Bottle It’ from the outset, said: “We are obviously delighted to have won this award which will send a clear message to the schools in the city that this is a worthwhile programme for them to adopt.

“Bottle It has also been incorporated into a programme that is being considered for distribution throughout the UK so, hopefully, Derby will be leading the way in alcohol education nationally.”

Michelle continued that ‘Bottle It’ was first piloted in response to research commissioned by the CSP which revealed the scale of alcohol misuse and the related sexual and anti social behaviour amongst 14 and 15 year olds in the city. 

Statistical data revealed that young people in year ten at school were regularly drinking and some were consuming more than 20 units a week.  The health advice is that no young people under the age of 14 should drink and males aged 15 to 17 should drink no more than four units (girls no more than three) and always under adult supervision.

“It became apparent that a growing number of young people were consuming alcohol to dangerous levels which has serious consequences for their short and longer term health and also left them vulnerable to harm whether that be assault, unprotected sex or involvement in anti-social behaviour.

 “We developed the peer alcohol education approach to firstly educate young people of that age about the dangers of alcohol misuse and the impact that it was having on them, their families and the local communities.

“We then involved them in the education programme and trained them to be able to talk to and support younger pupils in year eight who are approaching the age when young people tend to experiment with alcohol.

“The results have been fantastic with feedback from the peer educators that they themselves had kerbed their alcohol intake with their new-found insight into the dangers and from the younger children that it was much more powerful and effective to discuss this issue with older pupils rather than with teachers or other adults.

“Bottle It is very much a programme that schools can pick up and adapt to the needs of their own schools and local communities so our role now is to support schools if they need it with embedding the programme themselves.”

Derby City Council Leader Cllr Harvey Jennings said: “I am very proud that Derby is leading the way in addressing this issue that is of great to concern to us all.

“Bottle It is a perfect example of how agencies can work together to identify an issue and devise an innovative approach to challenging attitudes and positively affecting behaviour.”

Trish Thompson, Director of Community and Primary Care for NHS Derby City, said: “We are delighted to be selected for this award. The messages are more accessible to young people when they receive it from someone they can immediately relate to. Michelle has lead on a fantastic piece of work and we are very proud of her achievements and believe the impact of this approach will grow as we aim to roll the programme out in the City of Derby.”

Chellaston School Headteacher Mr Ray Ruszczynski said: “The scheme has been a huge success in the school as it really challenges attitudes towards alcohol and alcohol misuse and targets the most vulnerable groups or those that are at risk as well as educating young people across the year groups.

“We have now incorporated the good practice launched through the Bottle It scheme into our wider Peer Mentor programme – training and supporting older pupils to support younger pupils on a wide range of topics and issues.”

Among the first peer mentors to be trained when they were in year ten at Chellaston School were current year 12 students Holly Redfern (17), Neva-Theresa McBean (16) Othnielle Blake (16) and Amy Kozlowski (16).

Neva-Theresa said: “Although I have never really liked alcohol there were some in our year who thought it was cool and grown up to get drunk on a regular basis.

“I could never really see the point of going to trouble of persuading someone to buy you the alcohol and then huddling in a cold park just to have a drink in secret!

“Being a Peer Mentor gave us the information and the skills to pass onto people of our own age and young pupils and I think it has definitely made a difference to people’s attitudes.”

Othenielle continued: “The issue that most of the year eight pupils came to us about was feeling under pressure from other people to drink and it was good to empower them to say no and to realise that this was actually a form of bullying that should not be tolerated.

“I still get some of my group coming to me with their problems on this and other issues and I have seen a real change in attitudes towards drinking as they have got older which is great.  I think this has really made a difference in this school and has therefore had a positive effect on our local community.”

Amy said: “We tackled the subject in all sorts of exciting and interactive ways such as theatre performances, letting everyone try on beer goggles which was a very eye opening experience and explaining the damage that alcohol does to your body.”

Holly concluded: “Being a Peer Mentor has not only helped the younger pupils but has also really boosted my own self confidence.  I never thought I would be able to stand up in front of a class and effectively deliver a lesson."

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