DRUG education programmes are largely irrelevant to children who live in residential units and who are at risk of becoming users, a leading Scottish expert told a UK conference last week.
Ray de Sousa, principal officer for addictions in Edinburgh’s social work department, told a British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering seminar in Bristol: “School drug education programmes are for mass consumption. They are delivered by rote. They do not take into account the particular stage these youngsters may be at with their drugs misuse.”
But he was challenged by Alastair Ramsay, director of Scotland Against Drugs, who said: “Schools cannot take on board the problems of every child but the notion that they deliver their programmes by rote is profoundly wrong. These programmes are designed to deliver knowledge and promote decision-making skills. They have been tried and tested.”
Some 1,600 children are currently in residential care in Scotland. “Many regularly experiment with drugs,” Mr De Sousa said. “They are high-risk takers largely because of their family problems. That is why they are in residential care in the first place.”
There are 11,300 looked-after children in Scotland, who include those in foster care and living at home under social work supervision orders. According to Neil McKeganey of the Centre for Drugs Misuse at Glasgow University, drug abuse among this group is “considerably in excess of that among the general school population”.
Professor McKeganey said: “The range of their personal and family difficulties are greater and the nature of their drugs misuse more extreme. That is why their drugs education needs to be more focused and intensive.”
