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Success for all Flintshire High Schools achieving Drug Aware Award

Published: 13/07/2016

High Schools from across Flintshire have been awarded the Flintshire Sorted Drug Aware Award. Nicky Evans, Team Leader of Flintshire Sorted Young Peoples Drug and Alcohol Team, presented the Drug Aware Award at Flintshire County Council. She said: “The Drug Aware award is an aspirational standard for schools, supporting them to address drug and alcohol issues through early intervention and ongoing support such as PSE (personal and social education) sessions, regular lunch time drop-ins, peer education, targeted and individual interventions. “It leads the way in making a real difference. With the participation of teachers and pupils, Drug Aware schools have better, more robust drug and alcohol policy, education and support for vulnerable young people. Drug Aware schools have a Sorted link worker who is responsible for co-ordinating and carrying out drug and alcohol prevention interventions within their designated schools.” Claire Broad Flintshire Healthy School Adviser and Sorted Education Practitioners were present to congratulate the High Schools on their hard work and commitment in achieving the award. This academic year a review of the existing substance misuse policy was undertaken jointly by Flintshire Healthy Schools and Sorted. All thirteen secondary schools have successfully achieved the standard for the academic year 2015-2016. These are the Alun, Mold, St Richard Gwyn Catholic High School, Ysgol Maes Garmon, Argoed, Elfed, John Summers, Hawarden, St Davids, Connah’s Quay, Flint, Holywell and Castell Alun High Schools as well as Ysgol Maes Hyfryd. Flintshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Education, Councillor Chris Bithell, said: Our congratulations to the schools who have successfully achieved the standard. It’s a great achievement that all 13 of our schools have reached this standard compared with seven 2 years ago. This means that children and young people are getting better drug education in our schools with better policy, more confident staff and more effective early intervention processes. The aim is to change young peoples thinking and behaviour around drugs and alcohol as young people focus on the way substances affect their lives right now and develop protective skills. If you would like more information regarding Flintshire Sorted, please contact the team on 01352 703490. Left to rigtht: Laura Roberts - Flintshire Sorted, Claire Morter - Flintshire Sorted, Jade Williams - Elfed High school, Nicky Evans - Flintshire Sorted, Dawn Ashton- Flintshire Sorted, Holly Macfarlane - St Davids High school, Colin Ellis - Alun School, Jayne Fisher - Flint High school, Annette Connah - Hawarden High school, Jullie Parry -Hawarden High school Schools unable to attend: Argoed, Holywell, John Summers, Connahs Quay, Maes Hyfryd, Castell Alun, St Richard Gwyn Catholic High