Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF) and Working Rite have partnered to deliver drug and alcohol awareness sessions for young people. These sessions aim to equip participants with valuable knowledge to help them make informed decisions and prepare for the world of work. In this article, a project coordinator at Working Rite shares their experience and feedback from recent workshops.
“Working Rite and SDF have had a fantastic relationship over the last 3 years. I first met the SDF team when I attended the CRAFFT training as a member of staff in 2022. Since then, I have attended other training including the recent Ketamine training and honestly I find all of the training to be so valuable and help me to do my job better as a project co-ordinator working with young people in employability.
The team at SDF have been delivering drug awareness sessions to my groups of young people 3 times per year over the last couple of years. This has been an amazing part of our induction programme and gives young people so much knowledge around the risks of drugs and alcohol. It also allows them to think about what might happen to their jobs and opportunities long term if they use drugs and alcohol and how it can impact them in the workplace.
The sessions are interactive for the young people, informative, and a good length of time to keep them engaged usually lasting around 2 to 2 and a half hours. At the last session, I decided to gather some feedback to show what the young people get out of these sessions.
The team who deliver the sessions are so good at what they do. They are fantastic at getting the right message across, engaging with the young people and making it fun rather than being like a school environment. I hope to be able to work with SDF for years to come to continue to build these sessions into our programme for the young people before they go out into the world of work.”
Rachel Hall, Project Coordinator at Working Rite
Here is what some of the young people had to say about their sessions:
- “The session was really helpful”
- “This has been beneficial to me. I would recommend the sessions to anyone”
- “I now know the effects drugs can have on your brain”
- “I learned a lot that will help with my future”
- “There’s nothing I would improve it was a good session”
- “It was great, I learnt a lot!”
You can find out more about the training SDF offer here.