The 5th February marked a very important day for the youth charity The Alcohol Education Trust. After 14 years, the charity has changed its name to The TALK ABOUT Trust, to reflect the fact that it supports young people with the knowledge, life skills and resilience to make safer choices around vaping, cannabis, NOS and other substances, drink spiking and county lines as well as alcohol. Their flagship programme is called Talk About Alcohol and so the new name gives continuity plus the flexibility to talk about other important issues facing young people today.
Helena Conibear CEO commented, ‘When we started providing youth and parent workshops and teacher training in 2009, alcohol was absolutely the substance of experimentation for young people and is still hugely important, however vaping and cannabis use have increased hugely over the last five years, whilst youth drinking and binge drinking have thankfully been declining. As a result, we have been supporting children and young people and the teachers and professionals who work with them more and more on cannabis, cannabis edibles and more recently vaping, where children are experimenting at a shockingly young age. The name change to The TALK ABOUT Trust gives us the flexibility to talk about whatever is important to improving young peoples’ health, wellbeing and life chances, so we are very excited by this new chapter.’
Colin Weston, MBE High Sheriff for Dorset and a Youth Court Magistrate, made the keynote address at the TALK ABOUT Trust new name launch held at the charity’s headquarters, which includes a café and community hub Pavilion in the Park (PiP) Poundbury.
‘Both as High Sheriff and as a Youth Court Magistrate for many years, I have seen at first hand the huge impact that both alcohol and drugs can have on young people and indeed on older people as well. 25 per cent of referrals to substance misuse services stem from the youth justice system – the National Crime Agency tells us that 100% of children involved in County Lines and child exploitation are excluded from school, and research shows that 40% of prison inmates were under the influence of alcohol and 45% under the influence of drugs when committing an offence. I have no doubt that the work that The TALK ABOUT Trust does goes a long way in ensuring that our young people are kept safe and understand the dangers of substance misuse. Thank you for all that you do.’
The charity made sure it consulted the young people it works with, its wonderful funders and other stakeholders to ensure that the new name reflected the day to day work that it does in providing engaging interactive resources, websites, lessons and workshops for young people on alcohol and other substances, training and support for teachers and youth professionals and online and face to face support for parents and carers. You can visit our smart new website via www.talkabouttrust.org or learn more about the Talk About Trust’s work across England and Scotland via helena@talkabouttrust.org
