NVT Donates Towards Children’s Safety Education Foundation

NVT Donates Towards Children’s Safety Education Foundation

 

The Children’s Safety Education Foundation (CSEF) is a national charity committed to reducing the number of child victims through the provision of interactive safety education.

CSEF (Scotland) works towards a mission – to reach every child in Scotland so that they can make informed choices when they are faced with danger. CSEF’s capacity to understand and communicate with teachers and young people is unparalleled.

Not only do they look at cultural changes and shifts in attitude among today’s young people to develop effective dialogue and an engaging approach to safety education, they use curricular guidance to design specific programmes.

 

Childrens-saftey-education-foundation

NVT recently donated towards one such programme which saw 2 primary school classes being placed on a CSEF programme.

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Some Facts –

North Lanarkshire has many areas that are in the top 15% of areas of multiple deprivation in Scotland including Bellshill.  We want to work in Bellshill to deliver safety education in schools  

 

The health and wellbeing of a large number of people in Scotland is being harmed, directly or indirectly, by excessive alcohol consumption and the extent of social harms related to alcohol is increasingly recognised. Alcohol-related hospital admissions have quadrupled, death rates have nearly tripled since the early 1980s.

 

Statistics show an increase in the amount of substance abuse among smokers and alcohol users.  33% of 13 year olds and 50% of 15 year olds who were regular smokers had also used drugs in the last month. The prevalence was lower than this among weekly drinkers; 19% of 13 year olds and 34% of 15 year olds who were weekly drinkers had also used drugs in the last month, but still higher than the overall prevalence for all pupils (4% of 13 year olds and 13% of 15 year olds).

 

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So what about the availability of illegal drugs for young people in Scotland?

 

Well, as with other UK data concerning the availability of drugs, this survey also highlighted how many children and teenagers have actually been offered illicit drugs.

 

During 2006, just under a quarter (23%) of 13 year olds and over half (53%) of 15 year olds reported that they had ever been offered illicit drugs. There was little difference between boys and girls in their experience of being offered illicit drugs. At age 13, 25% of boys and 21% of girls reported having been offered illicit drugs, whilst at age 15 years old 55% of boys and 51% of girls reported having been offered illegal drugs. It appears there is an obvious cultural move toward drug abuse in the younger generations and this is a difficult trend to reverse as the young people become parents themselves with a more liberal and relaxed attitude towards illegal drugs.

 

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It is clear that young people in Scotland need to be aware of the consequences of substance abuse

 

Scottish children in the most deprived areas are over one and a half times as likely to be admitted to hospital and more than twice as likely to die as a result of unintentional injury as children in the least deprived areas.

 

A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation noted that, those who largely viewed Anti – Social behaviour (ASB) in terms of ‘disengagement’ thought that early preventive intervention, intensive youth work and community partnership offered the most promise. In the three case-study neighbourhoods, people were mainly concerned with general misbehaviour by children and young people, visible drug and alcohol misuse, neighbour disputes and ‘problem’ families.

 

Residents often regarded ASB as a symptom of social and moral decline. Local agencies tended to explain it in terms of social exclusion, especially of young people from deprived backgrounds. Scottish children in the most deprived areas are over one and a half times as likely to be admitted to hospital and more than twice as likely to die as a result of unintentional injury as children in the least deprived areas.

 

By supporting this initiative you can make a real difference to the wellbeing of young people in the area where you operate.  ‘Respect’ covers areas such as Alcohol and substance abuse and Anti – Social Behaviour. ‘Will Power Beware’ is a gentle introduction to the effects that smoking and alcohol that young children may be experimenting with has on young growing bodies. Both aim to equip the young people with information that allows them to make good choices in their lives where peer pressure may cause them to stray from the straight and narrow.

 

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