Boozeville released!
educari is delighted to announce the release
of its new CDROM for alcohol education.
The Boozeville CD-ROM provides:
- engaging story-lines, presenting
information about alcohol in interesting and exciting ways
- not just information about
alcohol, but alcohol education, helping young people to explore
reasons why people drink
- an alcohol encyclopaedia
with information displayed through a ‘PDA’
- quizzes for each of the
five sections
- lesson and session plans
- over one hour of original
animation
- an original soundtrack recorded
to a high standard.
The five sections of Boozeville cover:
- health and alcohol
- alcohol problems
- reasons for drinking
- the law on alcohol and alcohol
advertising
- alcohol safety and risks.
The Boozeville CD-ROM helps educators
to:
- confidently tackle alcohol
education in the classroom and other settings
- develop and extend the CD-ROM
activities through customisable lesson plans included on the
CD-ROM
- monitor students’
progress through the password-protected teacher control panel
- meet PSHE curriculum requirements.
Teachers will welcome the ability to monitor
students’ work on the resource through a password protected
area that gives access to quiz results and other input from the
users. Informal educators will particularly welcome the lively
storylines that will raise engaging questions that can be pursued
in group discussions.
click
here to order
‘Telematics’ and the Pompidou Group
‘Telematics’ is eurospeak for information and computer
technology. educari’s Richard
Ives recently chaired a meeting of the Council of Europe Pompidou
Group’s Prevention Platform, which considered this topic
The meeting, held in Helsinki, was attended by representatives
from 17 European countries.
All European drug prevention experts are aware of the growing
importance of telematics to their work, and there are a number
of interesting initiatives. For example, the pan-European work
of Prevnet has resulted in a ‘Flash’ presentation
on drugs and the brain, which can be accessed (in a number of
European languages) at www.jellinek.nl/brain/start.swf
(opens in a separate browser window).
Richard is currently involved in a Pompidou Group project concerning
the use of telematics to support family-based approaches to drug
prevention. This is taking place in three regions of Russia. For
more details, see www.narkopomosch.net
(Russian) www.narkohelp.net
(English) (opens in a separate browser window).
educari launches website at RoSPA Congress
On February 28th 2005, educari launched their latest website
at the RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) Congress
at Brighton.
The Road Safety Educational Resources Database which we have
created for the Department for Transport (DfT) is accessible from
this website. Users can search for resources and read details
provided by the publishers as well as reviews of the resources.
This website will be very useful to teachers, Road Safety Officers
and other educators who want to find the most appropriate educational
resources for road safety.
The DfT is supporting educari in continuing to develop the website.
If you know of resources that you think should be included, please
contact us.
Visit the website at
www.databases.dft.gov.uk/roadsafety.
educari’s website for Addaction is live
educari
has been working on a website for the drugs charity, Addaction,
with funding and technical support provided by HSBC Insurance
Services.
Addaction runs many drugs services for adults and young people
across the UK, and is developing its support for drug prevention
among young people. As part of this work a new website has been
created at www.youngaddaction.org.uk.
This website, designed and written by educari,
with technical web implementation by staff at HSBC Insurance Services,
provides drugs information and realistic drug-related scenarios,
aiming to inform young people about drugs and related issues.
A booklet covering the same topics as the website is in production.
educari is also working with Addaction on a booklet for children
of drug-using parents.
educari evaluates the role of young people’s drugs workers
in Suffolk
Standards Fund money for schools-related drugs work has, over
the past few years, supported a range of initiatives across the
country.
In Suffolk, some of the money was used to pay for Young People’s
Drug and Alcohol Advisors (YPDAAs) to work with young people in
schools.
Now this funding has ended, the Suffolk DAT wants to know whether
there is a continuing role for such workers, and have commissioned
an evaluation from educarii,
which will help them to make decisions about the nature of future
school-based support.
We will be asking a range of people involved in this work about
the success or otherwise of the YPDAA posts, and will produce
a report with recommendations by the end of December 2004.
Life Education Centres Report Presentation: ‘Children
– Choices & Attitudes to Health’
21st July 2004
educari participated in a meeting at the House of Commons to discuss
our report for Life Education Centres. For more details, see the
news item for 16 February 2004. The meeting brought together key
experts in the area of child health to discuss the key findings
of educari’s report and to make recommendations for education
policy and practice drawing on the best practice that the report
identified.
Keys to Health
Keys to Health is educari’s new CD-ROM, just released.
It provides a range of resources to support the Personal Social
and Health Education Curriculum at Key Stage 2 and the early part
of Key Stage 3.
Examples of the array of resources available include:
- an activity about self esteem
- three road safety activities for KS2
- a ‘getting to school’ game for KS3
- a drugs card game
- an activity about the cost of smoking
- information about tobacco
- two games about bananas that support the citizenship
curriculum.
The activities and games are designed to be engaging and fun,
while supporting and developing the central aims of the PSHE&C
curriculum. These activities can also be accessed on the web at:
www.keystohealth.org.uk
The development of the CD-ROM and the website was supported and
funded by the Corporation of London as its contribution to the
East London Healthy Schools Scheme. It has been distributed free
to primary schools in the four London Education Authorities involved
in the scheme (Corporation of London LEA; Newham LEA; Tower Hamlets
LEA; Hackney LEA). Others can purchase it from educari for £9.95
plus postage. Email: sales@educari.com
Draft Evaluation Handbook Commended
June 2004
educari has been closely involved with DrugScope’s Department
of Health-funded DEPIS project. Part of this work involves assisting
drugs projects to evaluate their work. Barbara Wyvill acted as
an Evaluation Consultant to a group of projects, while Richard
Ives has written a draft Evaluation Handbook to help projects
undertake this work. At the final meeting of this phase of the
project, the draft Handbook was commended as a useful and accessible
resource. In due course, it is expected that the Handbook will
be revised and made widely available. For more information, visit
the DEPIS section of DrugScope’s website (www.drugscope.org.uk).
Ethics and Drug Prevention
June 2004
The Council of Europe has commissioned Richard Ives to write
a chapter on the subject of ‘Ethical problems linked to
prevention’ in a book ‘Ethics and Drugs’ in
the Council’s ‘Ethical Eye’ series.
Drug Prevention Support Network for Parents and Professionals
June 2004
The Pompidou Group of the Council of Europe is commencing an
innovative project to test out various ways of reaching parents
and professionals in remote areas. The work will be piloted in
three regions of Russia, with the cooperation of the Russian Ministry
of Education.
Richard Ives is acting as consultant to the Project, which will
run through to 2006. The project will deliver drug prevention
information and training to a range of professionals and parents.
It will include web-based elements.
Pompidou Group's Prevention Platform
June 2004
Richard Ives gave a presentation on evidence-based practice to
a meeting of the international ‘Prevention Platform’,
an initiative of the Council of Europe Pompidou Group. He also
chaired sessions of this meeting, held in Strasbourg. The meeting
included professionals from 18 different countries that are members
of the Pompidou Group. The Pompidou Group addresses drugs issues
across all 34 of its member countries.
VSA Approaches
May 2004
Richard Ives visited Cork in the Republic of Ireland to give
a presentation to drugs professionals about approaches to tackling
volatile substance abuse (VSA). In doing so, he was able to draw
on educari‘s research on this topic previously carried out
in Northern Ireland for the Health Promotion Agency, which resulted
in the production of a booklet for retailers.
Colleagues in Cork are considering a range of approaches to the
problem of VSA.
Prevention Prize
May 2004
Richard Ives is acting as Advisor for the European Prevention
Prize awarded by the Pompidou Group of the Council of Europe.
This new Prize, to be presented for the first time in 2004, has
been established by the Pompidou Group to recognise the contribution
of a wide range of projects to drug prevention through the active
involvement of young people.
Thus, the two main criteria for the award of the prize were the
quality of the drug prevention work and the extent of the involvement
of young people. Applications were open to all 34 Member Countries
of the Pompidou Group.
A Prize Jury of six young people, assisted by adults acting solely
in an advisory capacity, met in Hamburg earlier this year, and
– after exhaustive deliberations – decided on the
winning entries.
The winners will be announced at a Drug Prevention Conference
to be held in Ekaterinburg in Russia in October 2004. The Prize
will be awarded annually.
Further Connexions
26 February 2004
Following our successful work for Central London Connexions last
year, when we built a website element on drugs to fit with their
main website (see www.centrallondonconnexions.org.uk
and click on the ‘Get the Facts’ icon), we successfully
tendered for the job of updating and developing this website element
and producing a CD-ROM for use by Personal Advisers (PAs) when
tackling drugs issues with young people.
The CD-ROM will include video material on key drug-related decision-making,
such as how to handle offers of drugs and how to deal with drug-related
emergencies. Session plans for PAs using this material will be
created. The website will be developed to include additional quizzes
and a directory of drugs services.
The CD-ROM and website will be completed by Summer, 2004 and
will be updated early in 2005.
Life Education Centres
16 February 2004
educari is carrying out a research review for Life Education
Centres. Life Education Centres deliver health education in partnership
with primary schools across the UK and tie their work closely
to the school curriculum.
They have adapted their mission statement and practice so as
to focus on the promotion of healthy lifestyles for primary school
children through integrated programmes within schools as well
as developing and improving co-operation with parents and communities.
They are keen to ensure that their work is underpinned by research
evidence and have asked educari to review the evidence base. We
are covering a wide range of evidence, including that used by
the Home Office Blueprint drug education programme as well as
research that addresses broader health issues.
Cannabis Law
29 January 2004
This is the controversial day. Cannabis becomes a Class C drug
Last week, Michael Howard called the change in the law ‘misconceived’,
but most professionals in the drugs field think it is at least
a step in right direction.
However, the effects of the change are not wholly predictable.
One problem is that many young people seem to think that cannabis
has been legalised. This is not so, it remains an offence to possess
cannabis. The maximum penalty is reduced from five years to two
years. Penalties for supply and dealing cannabis are not reduced
– they stay at a maximum of 14 years.
Meanwhile, other concerns about cannabis have come to the fore.
For example, some recent press coverage has focused on fears about
the possible damage of cannabis smoking to those with mental health
problems.
Whatever the changes, whatever the effects, you
can be sure that educari will keep you informed. Our
drug education CD-ROM, Xoteric, has a downloadable update,
so if you have already purchased this resource, visit www.xoteric.com
to bring your copy right up-to-date.
The Government’s FRANK campaign has produced information
about the change in the cannabis law. You can access this from
their website www.talktofrank.com
Richard Ives
Camden Children’s Fund evaluation
educari
is currently working in partnership with the Centre for Crime
and Justice Studies (Kings College, London) to evaluate the Camden
Children’s Fund (CCF).
The evaluation takes place over three years and is both formative
and summative. A key element of this evaluation is participation
by children and young people.
educari awarded Department for Transport road safety contract
21 December 2003
educari awarded Department for Transport road safety contract
educari has been awarded a contract by the Department for Transport
to create a database of road safety education resources.
There are a number of organisations producing resources to assist
in road safety education. Many Road Safety Officers based in Local
Authorities have created resources, as have a number of road safety
charities. There are also offerings from commercial publishers.
The database will include details of many of these publications.
It will be made available on a website that will be freely accessible
to all road safety educators.
educari is delighted to be working on this important project.
Road Safety education is a key element in meeting the Government’s
aim to reduce road deaths and injuries. There is a lot of work
to do: in the year 2002, 179 children died and 4,596 were injured
in road accidents. The target is to reduce child road casualties
by 50% by 2010 from a baseline 1994-1998.
Boozeville animation nears completion
11th November 2003
Animation on educari's eagerly-awaited forthcoming resource for
alcohol education is now entering its final stages.
The new CDROM will feature over an hour of digital animation,
in addition to interactive games, quizzes, extension activities
and teachers' module for tracking pupil progress through the resource.
Boozeville will be on sale in the new year
keep
me informed
Xoteric goes to Latvia
7th November 2003
Xoteric will shortly be available to Latvian schools. The Latvian
Health Promotion Centre is producing a version of our acclaimed
CD-ROM for drug education in the Latvian language. Richard Ives
is assisting colleagues in Latvia in adapting this Resource for
use in a different culture.
Resource adaptation is not just a matter of translating into
another language. Many other things will need to be changed. For
example, Xoteric includes a guide to UK law on various drugs,
and in the new version this will need to match the Latvian law.
More subtle changes will also be required. Patterns of drug use
among young people are different and changes to Xoteric will reflect
these differences. Then there are questions of emphasis and ‘tone’;
some elements need tweaking to fit with drug education and prevention
efforts in the country.
Richard knows a bit about the Baltic States, since he recently
worked with colleagues in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in developing
lifeskills-based drug education manuals for teachers and other
educators as part of a UN contract. His expert advice will help
to ensure that the new version of Xoteric makes a significant
contribution to drug education in this country, which becomes
a member of the European Union in 2004.
educari
is keen to assist with creating versions of Xoteric in other countries.
Please contact us if you are interested in this.
Xoteric website
update your copy of Xoteric (download)
order
Xoteric
Let's
Find Out about Drugs Together
by Richard Ives and Vanessa Cooper.
Claim
your free copy of the educari
booklet for Drug education:
click
here for your free copy
A booklet for Key Stage 2 children
to read together with their parents or carers. Puts drug misuse
into its proper social context. Contains activities for children
and parents. The booklet covers legal and illegal drugs, medicines
and volatile substances. Contains essential advice for adults
on how to tackle these topics with children
The Great Giveaway!
22nd October 2003
educari are making a very special offer to Local Education
Authority PSHE Advisors. We want to give you a present that you
can give to all your primary schools.
Yes, we know it is a bit early for Christmas, but we wanted to
be one of the first to bring you Christmas cheer.
Our book: Preparing Successful, Healthy, Educated Citizens
supports schools in developing their curriculum for Personal,
Social, and Health Education and Citizenship.
It retails at £24. We think it is a very
useful book for primary schools in sorting out how they can address
PSHE&C topics across the curriculum and in the whole school.
But don’t just take our word for it...
The TES Reviewer said that it:
‘… provides
a helpful overview of what is required for primary schools. It
discusses opportunities for learning and offers guidance on completing
curriculum audit and in-service work.’
We want to GIVE YOU a free copy of Preparing Successful,
Healthy, Educated Citizens for every primary school in your area.
Why are we giving you this publication free?
It’s partly altruism – we believe in the importance
of good quality PSHE & C; and we want to help to make it happen.
We think that this book is one way of encouraging schools to tackle
this topic across the curriculum.
It’s partly self-interest – we want to introduce
you to some of our other publications that we think you would
find useful.
So the deal is, we’ll supply you with enough copies
of the book for all primary schools (and special schools with
KS1&2 classes) in your area. We will also include
with each book a letter to the Headteacher and a flyer advertising
our other resources. We’ll also make a very special offer
to schools as part of this promotion.
What you have to do is to arrange collection of the books
from our Norfolk Headquarters (or pay the carriage and we’ll
do the rest) and agree to get them out to your schools.
If you are a local authority PSHE & C Advisor and want to
take advantage of this offer, send me a message by clicking on
this email
link. We only have a limited number of these books on offer,
so in case we have more requests than we can fulfil, please, in
your message, say why you think that schools in your Authority
would benefit from this offer.
Looking forward to hearing from you
Richard Ives
Connexions website
8th October 2003
We are delighted to announce the completion of a new website
element on drugs for Central London Connexions. This aims both
to inform young people about drugs and to help them identify any
drugs problems they might have and seek help.
Click
here to find out more
About educari
educari focues on improving things for children and young people.
To do this we operate in several different areas. Here’s
an update of our current work at the start of October 2003.
We continue our work on our exciting new alcohol CD-ROM project,
‘Boozeville’. The voices have been recorded and the
final stages of the animation are being completed. Our programmer
is doing some fancy work to enable teachers to have a record of
students’ responses to the activities in this resource.
Our booklet for parents, ‘Let’s
Find Out About Drugs Together’ continues to be bought
in bulk by local authorities, health authorities, the police and
schools. It is a great resource to use for following up drug education
lessons.
Evaluation
continues to be a key area of our work. We are completing a publication
on evaluation for the United Nations Office of Drug Control and
Crime Prevention, and we are involved with DrugScope’s evaluation
initiative.
We have recently started work on an evaluation of the Camden
Children’s Fund. We will be looking at the projects and
services that the local Fund has established and assessing their
performance and impact. Our evaluation will help the Fund to design
further services.
We are also doing some work for the Birmingham Children’s
Fund. Our website, www.brumability.com,
aims to help to reduce the isolation and social exclusion that
some young people with disabilities experience. With some additional
money from the Fund, we will be developing this site further,
and including an innovative educational game.
Other websites coming to fruition include our website for some
of the Healthy Schools Schemes in London. www.keystohealth.org.uk
will include material for both primary-age and older children.
It will be a fun environment, including games, activities and
quizzes that fit with the aims of the Healthy Schools Scheme.
Do contact us if you want to know more about our work.
Richard Ives
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KS3-4+ 
