| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
10.37 am
Liz Blackman (Erewash): I am glad that the terms of the debate are widely drawn. There are many interlocking elements in the debate on drugs and their misuse, including prevention, the breaking of dependency, prevention of criminal behaviour and the legal status of categories of drugs. My background is in teaching and working with young people. Abuse is evident in my constituency, particularly among small pockets of young people. Prevention is therefore my key topic.
The British crime survey 1997 said that 25 per cent. of 11 to 14-year-olds had been offered drugs, a shocking statistic. The Department of Health estimates that 40 per cent. of children will try drugs. Abuse exists from the top to the bottom of our society. Prevention must be better than cure.
The White Paper emphasises that drugs education should be an essential part of the curriculum from ages five to 16. What is taught must be coherent. It must be based on good practice, and it must be constantly evaluated. It should be process-based, and long term. I applaud the long-term vision of the 10-year strategy. We must teach in an open way, and teaching must be appropriate to the age of the children. We should recognise why young people become abusers: reasons include peer group pressure, teenage uncertainty, curiosity and domestic unhappiness. It is to be regretted that drug abuse is the norm in some families and communities.
Many programmes exist to tackle drug misuse, some developed by individual schools and others more collaborative. I commend the workings of the drug abuse resistance education project--DARE. I, too, am familiar with it. At its heart is the essential element of good drugs education. There is much to be learned from it.
That project has been running in Nottinghamshire schools for a few years--its remit has now been extended to at least six counties. What is different about it is its
partnership approach. That is apparent in the funding of the project, which it receives from voluntary, community and local authority sources, and from the police involvement, both of resources and personnel. That partnership is also reflected in the delivery of the project, which is carried out by teachers and the police in partnership with children and parents.
DARE originated in the United States and was implemented to protect young children and give them skills to resist drugs and violence. The use of research to promote state-of-the-art knowledge effectively to prevent children accepting and becoming hooked on drugs is continually ploughed back into the programme. There is constant evaluation and the best possible practices are in place. I am a great believer in using whatever works and taking the best possible practice from wherever one finds it.
In Nottinghamshire and the other counties the DARE programme is targeted at junior school rather than younger or older children, although it is right to target drugs education on children from the ages of five to 16. However, DARE is particularly appropriate to the junior school age group. The focus on developing skills to recognise and resist social pressure to experiment with drugs misuse, to enhance self-esteem and to provide and show positive alternatives to substance misuse, to develop decision-making and risk-assessment skills and build interpersonal and communication skills is at the programme's heart. It is process rather than information- based, which is its strength.
The other essential element is police involvement. Sir Richard Mayne said in 1839:
Mrs. Gillan:
I am listening carefully to what the hon. Lady is saying about the DARE project and she knows that I, too, support that approach. She will probably know that it is a franchise scheme that came from the United States. It has been taken up in more than 40 countries. A great help to the scheme has been the close involvement of personalities and the fact that television stations show cartoons on the subject to enthuse children about it, for example. Does she agree that it is to be hoped that more personalities and more of the media here will get behind a project such as DARE, so that it can yield the success rate that it had originally in America where it started 17 years ago?
Liz Blackman:
With any good initiative that has such widespread results I would endorse media backing and exposure. I entirely agree with the hon. Lady.
At the heart of the education process is the objective of developing high self-esteem in children. From that flows the child's ability to say no. Schools and colleges must build self-esteem not only through a dedicated drugs element in their citizenship and personal and social education programmes, but through everything that they do. That is what the whole input should be about. That means high-quality teaching to ensure good core skills, literacy and numeracy, access to a relevant and appropriate curriculum and good links with the home--literacy links and involvement in children's learning.
In certain areas with high social need additional resources are required. Resources such as sure start and education and health action zones will help to build on the quality of children's experience. High self-esteem is, of course, built in families as well as in the schools and communities in which young people live. Decent housing and opportunities for employment are also important. A lack of those fosters a breeding ground for drug pushing and misuse, crime, despair and low self-esteem. Where those opportunities are absent, sub-cultures develop that move beyond society's norms because they have no stake in society. I applaud the Government's initiatives such as the new deal, working families tax credit and the estates action programme. Prevention is long term and will require a multi-faceted package and approach.
Mrs. Jacqui Lait (Beckenham):
I begin by apologising to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to the House, as I have to leave to attend a constituency function and I will not be here to hear the replies. However, I look forward to reading Hansard. I will be most appreciative if the Minister responds to any of my questions.
Having listened carefully to the debate, I have been struck by the fact that other than a brief reference by the Minister for the Cabinet Office little has been said about the origins and source of drugs. There is widespread acceptance that we must deal with the problem and I do not for a moment disagree, but we must also tackle directly the source of supply.
Perhaps I am being innocent and naive, but I want the farmers who grow coca leaves and poppies to have a replacement crop that is equally valuable to them. I know that that is easier to say than to do, particularly when one considers the involvement of the crime cartels in central America.
"The primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime, next that of detection and punishment of offenders if crime is committed. To these ends all efforts of police must be directed."
The DARE project takes that advice seriously. Why is police involvement in the programme so good and effective? Children can relate the anti-drugs messages to the real-life experiences related by police officers. They see the officer as a credible source of information and a good role model. It is a good opportunity to meet the police in an educational context. The children recognise them as real people--fellow citizens--endorsing law- abiding behaviour. Time working on DARE enables officers to develop the skills identified in the Macpherson report, which resulted from the tragic death of Stephen Lawrence.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |