Promoting positive culture to combat youth alcohol issues in rural NSW Nicole Toia Health Promotion & Youth Health Officer

A bit of an Introduction Name: Nicole Toia Home Town: Perth, WA Education: Bachelor of Health Science (Health Promotion) Employment: Southern NSW Medicare Local

Background to Youth Health Youth Health strategy bringing primary health to meet the needs of young people - Mental Health - Sexual Health - Alcohol and Other drugs Young people between the ages of 14-24 in rural Australia can find it difficult to access affordable, youth friendly health services. SNSWML has a youth health strategy within the health promotion annual plan with the aim of making primary health care more responsive to the unique needs of young people. Our Comprehensive Needs assessment has highlighted the key health priorities for young people as mental health, sexual health, drug and alcohol. We have a multi targeted strategy to address these. Some examples of activities that you may be interested in using for your region are; • Capacity building within the community- YMHFA training across the region, Y foundation ‘sticky stuff’ sexual health training, youth specific health resources on web for GPs and other health professionals • Increasing access for young people- youth wallet cards for each LGA region, south youth facebook page, high school based health programs, Goulburn youth App, Black dog community mental health sessions • The Y stop- a mobile health screen which is run at youth events to increase awareness of health issues and direct young people to suitable services e.g. the ‘Love bugs station uses the NSW heath play safe web based sexual health quiz and then gives us the opportunity to link at risk young people in with a local sexual health or GP service. • General Practice Support- working with surgeries to support practices willing to tailor services to young people e.g. ‘Wednesday room’ drop in/bulk billing service for young people in Jindabyne. The Social Norms project was identified as an alternative means of addressing the issue of binge drinking in young people during our program review. Nicole is going to take over from here to explain this program.

Formative research Education and harm minimisation strategies running in area but still an issue with youth alcohol use. Discovered social norm concept: research further We based our program around the findings and recommendations of the Tasmanian SNAP program (Hughes, 2008). We based our program around the findings and recommendation of the Tasmanian SNAP program. This focus’s on collecting data about the perceived and actual norm of alcohol consumption and then promoting the message back. Through handing out resources (such as drinking bottles) and using posters around the school.

Less Than you think- The Program Overview of the program Aims to address the issue of risky alcohol consumption (Binge Drinking) in young people, by focusing on reinforcing positive behaviours to young people. The Goal The main Goal of the program was to bring the perceived norm of alcohol consumption among students back inline with the actual norm.

Method Focus Group Evaluation Social media interactions Formative Research Literature Review Consultation (Focus Group) Data Collection Survey Development Data collection Compile Data Data Promotion Poster Development & display Social Media Parent Newsletters Focus Group Evaluation Social media interactions 3 point data collection Recall questions Satisfaction survey** Literature Review & Planning Pause- Funding cut Re-plan low cost model Focus Group Survey development Data Collection Evaluation – Surveys (Inc recognition questions), social media interactions Parent information session Short film workshop Cinema Ad

Project Timeline ---------------------School Newsletter Articles ------------------------------------------------ Deliver Survey1 (Evaluate) Month1 Disseminate Findings M1 Deliver Survey 2 M3 Disseminate findings Run Short Films workshop & parent information Night M3/4 Evaluation Survey M9 Trouble shooting – be aware nothing goes to planned – delayed timlines

Strategies Our strategies included: Social Media – Twitter, Instagram & Facebook School Screen Savers Posters around the school Parent newsletters Parent information evening Short film workshop Cinema advertising

Findings so Far

Findings so Far From our first round of surveys we found that students were largely overestimated how much and frequently their peers in their year were drinking compared to the actual norm. As you can see most people thought their peers were drinking in the ‘often’ category which is about 2-3 times a month where as most student actually rarely or never drank alcohol (83% total). This graph helps to demonstrate the perceived norm compared to the actual 74% of students thought their peers drank more than twice a month but the actual norm only 17% of students drank more than twice a month. In our second phase we got students to answer 2 questions before they began the other survey. This asked them about message recall. Of those students who had some kind of recall of the program were more likely to have a more accurate perception of how much their peers drink. If you look at the following graph the blue column represents the estimated number of people who rarely or never drink alcohol by students who could recall the. The Orange column is the estimation of those who did not have any program, grey was the perceived recall prior to the program and then the yellow is the actual; norm of those who rarely or never drink alcohol. As you can see the perceived norm of those who could recall the program had a more accurate perception.

FindIngs so Far

Recommendations Get schools to sign a contract – timeline Have original meeting with the principal/deputy and the teacher who will help (helps if unforseen staff turn over occurs)

What next? Implementation Guidelines - Contact Nina Holland Role out program in schools across all of Southern NSW

Question Time Nicole Toia Health Promotion & Youth Health Officer E: ntoia@snswml.com.au Nina Holland P: (02) 4475 0818 E: nholland@snswml.com.au