A multi‐level approach to community‐focused training in drug education: part I working with parents, governors and school staff

Abstract

Recent advice suggests that single‐level, single‐strand interventions are less effective in preventing or reducing harm from drug misuse than multi‐level multi‐agency approaches. This paper describes one aspect of a community‐focused initiative in drug education. The overall aim of the initiative was to support and train key adults within the community to implement locally relevant schemes of work and drug‐related policies. In this paper we describe the training offered to parents, school staff and governors in communities in Essex. A second paper will describe the intensive in‐service training for health education co‐ordinators and the action research carried out by teachers which led to the development of a minimum entitlement curriculum for three different communities within the same county. We offer this combination of research, training and development as a new approach to drug prevention in local communities.