%T Updating your drugs policy to include NPS. %X In previous briefing papers, Mentor looked at the impact of new psychoactive substances on public health and drugs education. Schools and practitioners should also update their drugs policy to take account of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS). Every school?s drugs policy should include new psychoactive substances (NPS), formerly known as ?legal highs,? as these drugs have had harmful effects on young people and some school communities. Schools have a statutory obligation to protect the welfare of their students, so they must maintain accountability by updating their drugs policy accordingly, particularly considering increasing numbers of school exclusions related to drugs and alcohol. Briefing papers are part of a series produced by Mentor-ADEPIS on alcohol and drug education and prevention, for teachers and practitioners. %C London %D 2017 %I Mentor ADEPSIS %L ndc28085 %A Emer Smyth %T Growing up in Ireland: National longitudinal study of children. Off to a good start? Primary school experiences and the transition to second-level education. %X Primary schools can influence young people?s later engagement with education in a number of ways. First, having a positive experience of primary school and good relations with teachers can enhance children?s engagement with school and thus provide a firm foundation for later engagement. Secondly, having a positive experience of school subjects such as Irish and Maths at primary level is likely to influence young people?s attitudes to these subjects in the longer term. Thirdly, acquiring key skills in the form of literacy and numeracy provides the bedrock for later engagement with the second-level curriculum. The analyses presented in this report show that all of these factors came into play in shaping young people?s engagement with school at the age of 13. Having had conduct difficulties at age nine was associated with the nature of interaction with teachers four years later. However, teacher-student interaction was more strongly related to current levels of misbehaviour, suggesting some changes in the nature of student behaviour over the transition period. The frequency of positive interaction with teachers was associated with fewer transition difficulties among young people, while frequent negative interaction was related to transition difficulties among the most disadvantaged groups. The study findings point to the importance of both primary and second-level experiences in shaping student perspectives and outcomes. Thus, even taking account of the profile of students, the individual primary and second-level school attended shape the nature of the transition and of skill development among young people. %C Dublin %D 2017 %I Stationery Office %R Report 5 %L ndc28021 %A Sean Millar %J Drugnet Ireland %T A typology of alcohol consumption among university students in Ireland. %D 2017 %I Health Research Board %P 24 %L ndc27748 %V Issue 62, Summer 2017 %A Geoff Bates %A Lisa Jones %A Madeleine Cochrane %A Marissa Pendlebury %A Harry Sumnall %T The effectiveness of interventions related to the use of illicit drugs: prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery. A ?review of reviews?. %C Dublin %D 2017 %I Health Research Board %R HRB Drug and Alcohol Evidence Review 5 %L ndc27253 %T DEIS plan 2017. %X The DEIS Plan 2017, which replaces the current Action Plan launched in 2005, sets out our vision for future intervention in the critical area of social inclusion in education policy. %C Dublin %D 2017 %I Department of Education and Skills %L ndc27682 %A Padraig MacNamee %A Julie Breen %A Elaine Byrnes %A Siobhan O'Higgins %A Chiara Seery %A Charlotte Silke %T Development, implementation, and evaluation of the SMART consent workshop on sexual consent for third level students. %C Galway %D 2017 %I National University of Ireland, Galway %L ndc27515 %J Drug and Alcohol Findings Bulletin %T Intervention targets personality traits of high-risk London pupils. %X School staff trained to deliver personality-targeted substance use interventions to London high school pupils ? effectively delaying cannabis use among a subset (those identified as ?sensation-seekers?). Key points from summary and commentary ? The Adventure Trial tested the impact of personality-relevant coping skills on cannabis use among London high school pupils. ? High-risk young people were allocated to receive an intervention matched to their specific vulnerabilities (?hopelessness?, ?anxiety-sensitivity?, ?impulsivity?, or ?sensation-seeking?). ? Cannabis use was effectively delayed only among a subset ? those identified as ?sensation-seekers? %C London %N 5 May 2017 %D 2017 %I Drug and Alcohol Findings %L ndc27384 %A Karl O'Brien %A Brian Foley %T ?Its only weed?. Rethinking our response to young people?s cannabis use. %X The origins of this report arose from the Equal Youth Initiative in Ballymun. Equal Youth aims to develop a model of inter-agency co-operation between service providers supporting young early school leavers between the ages of 16 and 24. In recent years, it had been noted that a particular profiled group of Equal Youth clients were not maintaining appointments and those who did attend were demonstrating low levels of motivation in key-working sessions with practitioners. The impact of this on retention and progression rates for this target group was concerning and needed further analysis to determine what factors were contributing to high drop off rates or poor progression options for this particular cohort. %C Dublin %D 2017 %I Ballymun Youth Action Project %L ndc27246 %A Elaine M McMahon %A Grace O?Regan %A Paul Corcoran %A Ella Arensman %A Mary Cannon %A Eileen Williamson %A Helen Keeley %T Young lives in Ireland: a school-based study of mental health and suicide prevention. %X Globally, mental disorders are the largest cause of disability among those aged 10-24 years (1), with approximately half of all mental disorders emerging during adolescence, broadly the period between the ages of 12 and 18 (2-5). Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among young people (6) and in Ireland peak rates of hospital-treated self-harm are among 20-24 year old males and 15-19 year old females (7). Connecting for Life, Ireland?s National Strategy to Reduce Suicide 2015-2020, has identified young people aged 15-24 as a priority group at whom to target approaches to reduce suicidal behaviour and improve mental health (Goal 3, page 29) (8). Youth suicide prevention programmes are often based in a school setting. However, high-quality evidence has been limited, in both an Irish and international setting, to identify the true impact of suicide prevention interventions (9). In particular, no randomised controlled trials of school-based prevention programmes examining changes in suicidal behaviour had been conducted anywhere in Europe prior to the Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE) study. In this report we present the research findings of the SEYLE study, a mental health-promoting programme for adolescents in European schools (10). The study participants, 11,110 adolescents aged between 14 and 17 years old, were recruited from randomly selected mainstream second-level schools in ten European countries. The study was a randomised controlled trial (RCT) that aimed to identify an effective method of promoting adolescent mental health and decreasing suicidal thoughts and behaviours. A second aim was to gather information on the lifestyles and mental health of adolescents in order to identify risk and protective factors associated with suicidal behaviour. In this report we present both overall findings of the multi-centre trial and detailed findings on the mental health and lifestyles of Irish youth using data from the Irish study centre. In addition, this report details a range of risk and protective factors associated with mental ill-health and suicidal behaviour in Irish adolescents. The SEYLE trial identified one school-based intervention, Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM), that was associated with a significantly lower number of subsequent suicide attempts and suicidal ideation compared to the control intervention (10). YAM is a brief, universal mental health awareness programme that was delivered in the classroom over a four-week period and includes role-play sessions, interactive lectures and workshops. The programme aimed to improve the mental health literacy and coping skills of young people, to raise awareness of risk and protective factors associated with suicide, and to enhance young people?s knowledge about mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. %C Cork %D 2017 %I National Suicide Research Foundation %L ndc27153 %A Harry Sumnall %A Andrew Percy %A Jon C Cole %A Lynn Murphy %A David Foxcroft %J Public Health Research %T Steps towards alcohol misuse prevention programme (STAMPP): a school and community based cluster randomised controlled trial. %X BACKGROUND: Alcohol use in young people remains a public health concern, with adverse impacts on outcomes such as health, well-being, education and relationships. OBJECTIVES: To assess the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a combined classroom curriculum and parental intervention on self-reported alcohol use [heavy episodic drinking (HED)] and alcohol-related harms (indicators such as getting into fights after drinking, poorer school performance and trouble with friends and family). DESIGN: A two-arm, cluster randomised controlled trial with schools as the unit of randomisation. SETTING: A total of 105 post-primary schools in Northern Ireland (NI) and Glasgow/Inverclyde Educational Authority areas. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 12,738 male and female secondary school students (intervention delivered when students were in school year 9 in NI or S2 in Scotland in the academic year 2012?13 and aged 12?13 years) were randomised. Randomisation and baseline (T0) surveys took place when children were in school year 8 or S1. Schools were randomised (1?:?1) by an independent statistician to the Steps Towards Alcohol Misuse Prevention Programme (STAMPP) or to education as normal (EAN). All schools were stratified by free school meal provision. Schools in NI were also stratified by school type (male/female/coeducational). INTERVENTIONS: STAMPP combined a school-based alcohol harm reduction curriculum [an adapted version of the School Health and Alcohol Harm Reduction Project (SHAHRP)] and a brief parental intervention designed to support parents in setting family rules around drinking. The classroom component comprised two phases delivered over 2 years, and the parental component comprised a standardised presentation delivered by a trained facilitator at specially arranged parent evenings on school premises. This was followed up a few weeks later by an information leaflet mailed to all intervention pupils? parents highlighting the main points of the evening. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: (1) Self-reported HED (defined as self-reported consumption of ??6 units in a single episode in the previous 30 days for male students and ??4.5 units for female students) assessed at 33 months from baseline (T3); and (2) the number of self-reported harms (harms caused by own drinking) assessed at T3. DATA SOURCES: Self-completed pupil questionnaires. RESULTS: At final follow-up (T3), data were available for 5160 intervention and 5073 control pupils for the HED outcome, and for 5234 intervention and 5146 control pupils for the self-reported harms outcome. The intervention reduced self-reported HED compared with EAN (p?