Gateshead Council: running a dedicated service for young people

It provides education, early intervention, outreach and psychosocial interventions for under 18s across the region.

The challenge

Drug and alcohol misuse poses a significant risk to a young person’s physical and psychological health and development. But research suggests significant numbers of under 18s are trying these substances.

Results from the latest annual survey of smoking, drinking and drug use among secondary school children found one in four had tried drugs and nearly half had consumed alcohol.

The solution

Many areas have an integrated substance misuse service that caters for both adults and children. But Gateshead Council has a dedicated service for each.

The young people’s service is called Platform and is run by DISC. It provides education, early intervention, outreach work and psychosocial interventions to under 18s - or under 25s for those with learning disabilities. The latter are offered on a one-to-one basis or within groups.

Key workers engage with young people to develop their own support plans depending on what they want to gain from the service and their objectives relating to their substance use, actively involving them in their own journey with the service.

Many of the young people they work with are from vulnerable groups, such as young offenders, looked after children, those not in education or employment and victims of child sexual exploitation.

There is an education co-ordinator who focuses on training professionals working with young people, such as teachers and staff from the pupil referral unit, in substance misuse and how to identify and support young people. This training can be bespoke depending on needs identified by professionals.

The education co-ordinator also provides targeted interventions, including drop-in services, and workshops in schools, including one in year six, which aims to provide basic drugs and alcohol awareness in preparation for their transition into secondary school.

This work is complemented by the direct support offered to the children of parents who misuse substances via the early intervention programme. The programme works with young people who have parents that use substances but who do not use themselves. It provides education around substances, reasons why people use and coping skills. It aims to support young people and also break the cycle of substance use.

Finally, there is the Platform Outreach Project (POP), which was launched last year as a pilot funded by the community safety team.

The project involves hot spot areas being identified by the police and community safety where young people are engaged in risk-taking behaviour, such as substance misuse and anti-social behaviour.  

Workers then deliver brief interventions, engaging young people out in the community who may not otherwise received this type of information. 

Impact POP has delivered interventions to over 1,000 young people in the first year of the pilot.

Samantha (not her real name) is just one of the people who has benefitted. The service received a referral from the local hospital after the 15-year-old was admitted after allegedly using ecstasy. She was offered numerous appointments via letter and phone, but did not attend. Some time later she was in a group who were approached by a POP outreach worker. She recognised the name of the service and from there the worker got talking to her about the help she could receive. She then agreed to have a key worker and a home visit was arranged and a care plan developed.

Lessons learned

Platform senior manager Faye Codling said one of the real benefits of having a standalone service for young people is the ability to tailor services to them. “Working with young people using substances is different to working with adults.

“Young people want to experience and try substances and are often drawn towards their peers. Telling a young person to stop using drugs will result in them not coming back for support and being at increased risk.”

“So our approach is based on aiming to provide education in order for young people to make informed choices with the overall aim of reducing or stopping their substance misuse. ]The team are all experienced and specialised and we so can allocate the right worker to the young person referred depending on their need.”

How the approach is being sustained

Over the next year the service would like to develop more bespoke work with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community around substance use. Platform will also be working alongside Public Health England in support of Balances #alcoholfreechildhood campaign. This work will focus on providing education to parents around the use of alcohol by young people and reduce current myths around providing alcohol to their young people.

Contact details

Faye Codling Senior Manager, Platform [email protected]