Young people
The evidence base for Blueprint
Blueprint is a new way of providing drug education which is driven by the principles of effective practice and adapted to fit the work of drug education in England.
This means that an evidence base distilled from the best international studies will become our own evidence base grounded in the experience of trying out best practice in drug education across English schools and communities.
The evidence base for drug education has been established by reviews of research from around the world which have shown that drug education can achieve at least modest reductions in drug use and may also delay the onset of drug use.
This evidence base provides key principles of working that sit comfortably within existing guidance on Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) and progression towards the National Healthy School Standard .
For full details of Blueprint programme development and evidence underpinning it please see article by original Blueprint Research Manager, Paul Baker: Developing a Blueprint for evidence-based drug prevention in England
Principles of effective approaches to drug education
Blueprint has been designed to take account of Dusenbury’s and Falco’s review (1995) of what has been found to be effective in drug education. They noted that effective programmes:
- Are research driven – based on evidence of effectiveness
- Are developmentally appropriate – information and materials designed for skills and knowledge level of young people
- Have a broad skills base – help young people to address influences, make better informed decisions etc
- Include social resistance skills – help with the acquisition of life skills eg how to resist unwanted pressure
- Include normative education – showing young people that drug use is not as widespread as they might think
- Use interactive teaching styles – pupil participation techniques
- Include teacher training and support – to help ensure that teachers have the skills, awareness and knowledge to credibly lead lessons
- Have adequate lesson coverage – sufficient classroom time to cover topics and follow-up
- Are culturally sensitive – for a full range of diverse groups
- Include added components eg family, community, media etc – multi-component programmes are more effective than school-based ones alone
- Are rigorously evaluated – to identify evidence of what works
