Alcohol Awareness Workpack - Darlington Youth Offending Service

Description:

The Alcohol Awareness work pack comprises intervention materials designed to explore the reasons behind the young person consuming alcohol and the impact that this has on their life and their family members.

The materials should be delivered by someone skilled in motivational interviewing, the materials require at least three different coloured pens, pencils and for one exercise access to the internet and the website www.youtube.com. The pack here is for 1:1 work, however the materials can and have been adapted to work in a group setting.

The pack is flexible in terms of duration, for low intensity/dosage orders a selection of exercises can be chosen, for young people with suitable need and length of time to complete the full pack can be completed. The work pack can change in duration depending on the young person’s engagement, knowledge and willingness to explore their alcohol consumption. The materials contain Effects of Alcohol Cards and A guidance on the work pack.  

What Makes it Work:

• The pack is flexible and can be used to address basic awareness as well as more problematic alcohol consumption. 
• The pack utilises a range of delivery methods throughout and caters for all learning styles. 
• The exercises and their effectiveness will depend on the facilitator; however the pack is a well ordered and simple way of exploring alcohol consumption with a young person. 
• Although the facilitator would benefit from some knowledge on the subject, the pack works in a way that allows the young person and facilitator to work through each exercise without it being a lecture on alcohol consumption. 
• The pack, exercises and set up steers away from right and wrong rhetoric and is most effective when the young person is able to challenge their own drinking behaviour by simply completing the tasks with the aid of some further exploratory questions from a facilitator. 

Implementing The Practice:

• Deliver the pack to yourself or a co-worker prior to completing with a young person.
• The pack is designed for A3 Landscape Colour Printing, however can be reduced to A4 should it be necessary, this does not reduce the effectiveness of the resource but potentially the ability for the young person to focus and engage in the exercises. 
• As mentioned in the ‘How it works in practice’ section, a facilitator with motivational interviewing skills, in particular a non-judgemental and non-didactic approach.   
• Fully utilising the multimedia elements of the session, although the pack can work without the ‘awareness campaigns’ exercise it is a different and interesting delivery method that has been warmly received by young people completing the pack. 
• The pack is open to alteration and editing, for example the ‘awareness campaign’ exercise was added in 2013.

Contacts: