Highland is piloting the Planet Youth model, in partnership with Winning Scotland. Highland are one local authority area included in the Scottish pilot, and currently there are five Highland secondary schools involved: Thurso High School, Wick High School, Golspie High School, Dornoch Academy, and Tain Royal Academy.
The Planet Youth, Icelandic Prevention Model, originated in Iceland. In the 1990s, Iceland had the highest rates of teen smoking, alcohol and drug use across Europe. Now they have the lowest.
To help the situation, they looked at the risk and protective factors for alcohol, tobacco and other drug use in young people, across four areas life: family, peers, school and leisure time. They used local, anonymous, survey information from young people to increase protective factors, and reduce risk factors.
This evidence-based, international programme, has now been adopted in many other countries around the world.
There are other benefits for young people, including improved mental and physical wellbeing.
The programme will aim to:
- increase opportunities for young people, this will include many different activities such as sport, music, art, dance and others.
- work with communities, including young people, to ensure local ownership and a proactive approach to address local issues.
- apply evidence based practice, implementing interventions based on data from local communities, which will be collected from an anonymous school survey.
This short video gives an overview of the model: