Talk About Alcohol - A school-based intervention focusing on delaying alcohol use by use of pick and mix approach
At a glance
Country of origin
Level(s) of intervention
- No intervention levels defined
The key aims of Talk About Alcohol are delaying alcohol use, help ensure that if young people choose to drink, they do so responsibly; reduce risk taking and encourage good personal decision-making and responsibility and reduce the prevalence and acceptability of drinking to get drunk and the antisocial consequences of drunkenness. The minimum requirement in this ‘pick and mix’ approach is the implementation of six classes over a period of two years.
The free resources, created by teachers and PSHE specialists, include:
- a 100-page teacher work book of lesson plans, ‘Quick fix’ worksheets, information sheets, games and ideas and a DVD for PSHE teachers (the purpose of this workbook is to provide adaptable ‘pick and mix’ materials to suit the knowledge and experience of students by key topic)
- a 500 page website www.talkaboutalcohol.com with games, quizzes, and dedicated areas for teachers, students and their parents
- booklets to send home to parents and an opportunity to host a ‘talk about alcohol’ parents talk in school (delivered by the AET specialists free of charge)
- resources set out by subject for teachers via: www.alcoholeducationtrust.org with ‘conversation starter’ film clips, links to useful sites and portable resources.
Keywords
No dataLinks to this programme in other registries
Implementation Experiences
Read the experiences of people who have implemented this programme.Contact details
The National Foundation for Educational Research
The Mere, Upton Park, Slough, Berkshire SL1 2DQ
www.nfer.ac.uk
Overview of results from the European studies
Studies overview
The Talk about alcohol has been studied by making use of a longitudinal quasi-experimental design (Lynch et al., 2013; Lynch et al., 2015)
The first evaluation study used a QED, multilevel modelling and mainly descriptive statistics (Lynch et al. 2013). The study investigated change over time for the two groups by carrying out a self-report questionnaire survey of students at three time points across the school years 2011-12 and 2012-13. There was some variation in each responding sample, as some students will have been present or absent at different times, although there was a core group of 1924 in the intervention group and 1741 in the comparison group who responded to all three surveys; still more than the 1500 students at each time point that were calculated as required for robust analysis of change in outcomes over time. The positive response rate and very minor attrition over the course of the evaluation indicates programme loyalty in schools. Rates of change between the two groups for the onset of drinking, knowledge of alcohol and its effects; and frequency of drinking were studied. Significantly fewer students in the intervention group than in the comparison had ever had an alcoholic drink by the time of the third survey (effect size 0.000), significantly greater increase for students in the intervention group on the knowledge component at T2 (effect size 0.17) and T3 (effect size 0.15), no evidence of a statistically significant difference in frequency of drinking (amongst those who drank alcohol) or in terms of prevalence of drinking to get drunk at this stage.
The second evaluation study consisted of a longer-term follow up based in the same data (Lynch, 2015) to determine whether the proportion of students in the intervention group who had ever had a drink was still significantly lower than in the comparison group; whether a significant difference in knowledge still existed; and if a significant difference in frequency of drinking and drinking to get drunk emerged when students were older. Only 18 out the 33 schools at baseline participated in the fourth survey (age 15-16). Over half of the participants dropped out: n=900 in intervention group at T4 (2142 at T0), n=1146 at T4 (2268 at T0) but no attrition or intent to treat analysis was conducted. Multilevel modelling showed significantly fewer students in the intervention group compared to control group had ever had an alcoholic drink by the time of the fourth survey but there was no evidence of a statistically significant difference in knowledge component nor in frequency of drinking (amongst those who drank alcohol) or in terms of prevalence of drinking to get drunk at this stage. Considering that both studies are predominantly based on regression models it is difficult to establish a nuanced picture of the effects of this intervention without having goodness of fit indices of these models and confidence intervals of the coefficients.
Countries where evaluated
- UK
Characteristics
Protective factor(s) addressed
- Individual and peers: prosocial behaviour
Risk factor(s) addressed
- Individual and peers: anti-social behaviour
- Individual and peers: early initiation of drug/alcohol use
- Individual and peers: favourable attitude towards alcohol/drug use
- Individual and peers: Perceived risk of substance use
Outcomes targeted
- Substance use
- Alcohol use
Description of programme
The Talk About Alcohol interventions takes a harm minimisation approach and gives teachers free tools to encourage students to make informed decisions, and tactics to help them manage difficult situations. The resources include: a teacher workbook of lesson plans and DVD; a 500 page website www.talkaboutalcohol.com with areas for teachers, students and their parents; information booklets for parents and young people; an opportunity to host a ‘talkaboutalcohol’ parents event in school; and resources set out by subject for teachers via: www.alcoholeducationtrust.org. The key aims of the interventions are to delay the age at which teenagers start drinking, help ensure that if they choose to drink, they do so responsibly, and reduce the prevalence of drinking to get drunk and the antisocial consequences of drunkenness. Because of the ‘pick and mix’ approach it is unclear what the core components of the intervention are or should be. Little is known concerning the necessary number of classes and amount of class time interaction and the use of parent booklets.
