Case studies
Back to previous page‘Foleshill Drug Education Project’, Coventry
DAT(s): Coventry.
Region(s): West Midlands.
Last updated: 04 February 2004
Summary: Peer-led drug awareness initiative for BME communities.
Approximately 49% of Foleshill’s population are from BME communities. It is also one of the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Coventry.
The need
The Foleshill community expressed concerns and outlined issues at the following consultations:
- Workshops and networking events as part of the Healthy Foleshill project.
- Meetings between local Asian Community groups and service providers.
Partner agencies delivering community services in the neighbourhood also identified needs.
Key issues around drugs included:
- the increasing usage of drugs;
- drug-use by young people, and in public spaces;
- open drug-dealing;
- poverty within the community;
- high unemployment;
- low educational attainment;
- the isolation of the community;
- the social and cultural taboos about drugs within the Asian communities.
The idea
The Foleshill Drug Education Project (DEP) is one of nine projects which make up the Healthy Foleshill project. Healthy Foleshill was set up in 1997 to tackle health inequalities in a participatory manner.
In 2002, the University of Warwick wrote an evaluation report of these projects (including the DEP) after:
- Participatory Learning Events (PLEs) involving partners and users; and
- interviews with project workers and other key individuals involved in the project.
The objectives of the DEP, reported in PLEs, is to:
- reduce drug-related harm;
- reduce the community’s fear and ignorance of drugs through education;
- provide initiatives that prevent drug use rather than cure drug use;
- work with service delivery agents to make services responsive to community needs;
- enhance the community’s ability to manage drug use.
Interviews by the University identified two approaches to achieving these objectives:
Training
‘Accessing the Inaccessible’
This initiative provides accredited training in drugs awareness for volunteers
from the Asian communities of Foleshill. They can then cascade information
and support within the community. The initiative supports the volunteers to
apply their newly acquired knowledge and develop projects with their
community. It was designed as a way of overcoming the social and cultural
taboos about drugs within the Asian communities of Foleshill.
Information
The DEP sponsored a community performance, ‘Baad Mein Kya?’ (What Next?), for nine-year-olds. The students received a drug information pack.
Information stalls have been present at a range of community events and at Nightclubs hosting Asian Music (Bhangra) events in Coventry.
Drug awareness tutorials have been delivered to young people attending Henley College, Coventry in partnership with Student Services.
How it works
The Foleshill DEP employs:
- a full-time Project Worker;
- volunteers who have successfully passed the project’s Open College Network (OCN) Community Drug Awareness course.
This project is funded by money from the Pooled Treatment Budget. Before 2004, it was funded by the Single Regeneration Budget.
The project worker attends meetings with statutory agencies including the DAT. These Programme Development Groups deal with the four topics of: treatment; young people; community progress; and availability.
‘Accessing the Inaccessible’
Local Asian residents are recruited for the Accessing the Inaccessible initiative through a variety of networking events.
They then receive training at a six-week Community Drugs Awareness course. The course provides training in three key areas:
Drugs Awareness;
- Approaches to Drugs Awareness; and
- Delivering Drugs Awareness.
Successful participants receive accreditation with the Open College Network (OCN) so they can gain a useful qualification for professional development.
Previous volunteers have reflected the diversity of the Asian community in Foleshill. They included:
- men and women;
- speakers of Punjabi, Hindi, Gujarati, Urdu, Bengali and English;
- representatives of the Hindu, Sikh and Muslim religions;
- a variety of ages (25 – 48 years);
- a variety of employment backgrounds (health workers, students, unemployed people).
The project develops according to local circumstances. Course participants have formed a self-supportive group called the Asian Drug Advisory Group (ADAG) to:
- share experience; and
- plan, deliver and evaluate drug awareness activity throughout Foleshill.
Apart from training, the volunteers also receive support from the DEP when they deliver education projects in Foleshill.
Key Benefits
The DEP:
- keeps drugs issues on the agenda;
- assists volunteers working in the community;
- makes BME students of drugs issues more employable.
The Foleshill DEP and the ADAG are developing activities that will support members of the Asian communities to take up services at the Community Drugs Team. The increase in work with key members of the Asian community (including the business community) also reflects how drugs issues have become more openly discussed.
The Accessing the Inaccessible initiative has helped to empower individuals to tackle the gap in the provision of drugs services accessible to Asian communities. The peer-led approach has removed many barriers to access including language, culture and religion. Also, as peers, volunteers are able to establish good levels of trust and understanding within the particular communities.
Furthermore, because the initiative is rooted in the community itself, local issues and perspectives inform the drugs policies of key agencies such as the DAT.
As they gain the community’s confidence, volunteers are helping to build bridges with more isolated minority groups.
Another benefit of the Accessing the Inaccessible initiative is the improvement in life chances for the participating volunteers. For many of the students, this was the first formal qualification that they had received since leaving school. Therefore, the completion of the course was a significant and positive factor that increased their self-esteem and confidence. Volunteers have shown this confidence by using their experiences to find alternative employment or educational opportunities. For example, individual students have secured:
- a place on a Communication, Culture and Media course at Coventry University;
- a work placement at a Christian based drugs rehab clinic;
- a place on a Community Research course run in partnership with Coventry University and the University of Warwick;
- part-time employment with the Healthy Foleshill project.
Although new employment opportunities have emerged for the students of the course, they all continue to volunteer through the Asian Drug Advisory
Group. This is because they recognise the importance of the work within their communities.
The DEP helped to form the Asian Drug Advisory Group (ADAG). This Group have raised £13,100 from the CAD fund to ensure Asian language drugs information is available in a variety of settings. The ADAG developed:
- multi-lingual posters and advertising materials promoting drug lines and services (at leisure centres, in shops, on beer mats etc.);
- information stalls (e.g. at a Bhangra Night and at International Women's Week events at the Muslim Resource Centre and an Asian Elderly group).
The ADAG has managed to promote drug services to local communities in sensitive, yet high profile, ways. For instance, members of the Group have been able to engage and work with members of:
- local Mosques’ committees;
- Hindu Mandirs;
- social clubs;
- the Muslim community (through a Muslim sub-group of the Asian Drug Advisory Group);
- the Asian community who do not normally engage in more formal groups.
The ADAG is now a key local consultant in the development of the DAT’s strategy. This bottom-up approach to policy and strategy development allows local issues to influence the main agenda of the partners involved in the provision of drugs services across the city. The Group’s advocacy on behalf of the Asian communities helps to ensure that there is an inclusive approach to drugs awareness and treatment.
Comments
The Project Officer has been nominated for the Coventry and Warwickshire Community Citizenship Awards for bridging the gap between disadvantaged members of the community and drugs services.
The significance of the Accessing the Inaccessible initiative has been acknowledged by the Home Office: Bob Ainsworth MP (Parliamentary Under Secretary for Anti-Drugs Coordination and Organised Crime) presented the certificates to volunteers completing the first course.
Students who passed the Open College Network course in Community Drug Awareness, received their certificates from the Mayor of Coventry at a special awards ceremony. Two of the students, Yunus Kara and Shakir Ahmed, also received special awards for ‘Outstanding Student Achievement’ and ‘Outstanding Volunteer Contribution’.
The DEP intend to target parents in future drugs awareness projects.
The Asian Drug Advisory Group are currently working with the University of Warwick and undertaking a module in Human Diversity. This will develop their learning beyond a drugs awareness remit into the fields of behaviour, sexuality and race. The aim is to expand the Group’s understanding of the wider social context of drug-use, and its relation to community development and neighbourhood renewal and regeneration. Members of the ADAG are also working with the University of Warwick to write a book called, 'Asian Perspectives on Human Diversity - A Toolkit for Empowering the Community'.
The Healthy Foleshill Project was evaluated as a whole in, ‘Putting the Pieces of the Healthy Foleshill Jigsaw Puzzle together’, Maria Allison and Mick Carpenter, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, July 2002. The report considers the links across the nine projects and identifies the:
- importance of a Project Manager and internal steering group to making sure the projects are joined up;
- need to develop quantifiable criteria of success.
The second stage of the University’s evaluation, ‘Healthy Foleshill Plus’, is focusing on three issues:
- Putting the recommendations of the first evaluation into practice;
- Developing effective work with the local community.
- Community-led research into health needs.
Dr Mick Carpenter can be contacted on 02476 523 161.
For further information
Coventry DAT
Barry Eveleigh
DAT Coordinator
Community Safety Team
Room 214
Broadgate House
Broadgate
Coventry
CV1 1FS
Tel: 02476 832131 Email: barry.eveleigh@coventry.gov.uk
‘Foleshill Drug Education Project’
Abtar Sanga
Project Worker
Coventry City Council
City Development Directorate
Tower Block (MH 2/3)
Much Park Street
Coventry
CV1 2PY
Tel: 02476 831328 Email: abtar.sanga@coventry.gov.uk
