State Drug Education Strategy

The Tasmanian project flows from a four year Commonwealth initiative under the National Illicit Drug Strategy which will provide funding of $134,000 to Tasmania in this year, and similar amounts in the three years thereafter.

The intent of the Strategy is:

to maintain the momentum of the earlier NIDE (National Initiatives in Drug Education) project; and
to recognise, integrate with, and enhance existing school initiatives

in all school sectors : Government, Catholic and Independent
at all levels from kindergarten to secondary colleges.

The Strategy has a dual focus :

Provision of educational programs
Provision of supportive environments

which contribute to the goal of 'no illicit drugs in schools'.

The Commonwealth objective is to ensure that there exist across-the-board structures and processes in schools which, in the long term, will bring about behaviour and attitude change in young people. Those structures and processes include a range of components which schools will be asked to review over the life of the Strategy :

First, whole school philosophy in relation to studentwellbeing, the umbrella under which all other elements of the action plan sit. To provide strategies for increasing the resilience of students through addressing risk factors and enhancing protective factors. Then,

School policy and protocols;
Processes for supporting students with drug problems;
Family and community involvement in the school in relation to responses to drug issues;
Student engagement strategies and processes in the school;
School curricula for drug education;
Professional practice for teachers.

This Project in Tasmania provides an opportunity for all schools in the state at some time during the four years of the Project to get some tangible support to review their broad response to the fact that young people need support in managing a world in which drugs are a reality.

Commonwealth protocols for responding to drug related incidents in the schools have been released and are a critical underpinning of the project. The Commonwealth is seeking some national consistency in school community responses. Schools will be asked to operationalise the protocols at local level in consultation with the broader school community including alcohol and other drug service providers, guidance officers and social workers, the police etc. This Project will provide support to schools to put in place local strategies that are consistent with other schools.

The other significant value of this Project is that, because of its umbrella focus on student wellbeing it has the capacity to integrate and assist in bringing together into one package a range of Commonwealth initiatives, supported by the State, that the Commonwealth is not pulling together at all :

the National Sexual Health Strategy
the National Mental Health Strategy
the National Drug Education Strategy
the National Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy

Overlaps

At the same time this Project can use the same language as other whole school focuses like Supportive School Environments and Health Promoting Schools, and the Supportive School Communities, all of which are umbrellas for student wellbeing issues. There needs be no re-inventing of the wheel in many schools, especially in many primary schools where these philosophies have been well entrenched for years.

Project structure

State and Regional Co-ordinating Committees with broad based membership.
Regional Project Officers in the north-west, north and south, plus State Project Officer available to work with schools.
Funding available to schools to assist them to review/develop comprehensive responses to broad drug issues with the school community.

How to go about working with the Project

Talk to your Regional Project Officer about the process.
Put together your Whole School Drug Strategy Team.
Conduct a needs analysis of your school community in relation to drug issues and incidents within the guidelines of the NSDES Project as well as reviewing student wellbeing.
Plan your school community's responses.
Seek financial support through the Project to action your Whole School Drug Strategy.
Implement your action plan with the support of the Project.