Citation

Farringdon F, McBride N, Midford R. Int. J. Health Promot. Educ. 1999; 37(4): 137-143.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Institute of Health Education)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

The School Health and Alcohol Harm Reduction Project (SHAHRP) is a four-year longitudinal, intervention research study currently being conducted in 14 high schools in Perth, Western Australia, involving over 2300 intervention and control students. The aim of the study is to provide students with sufficient practical skills to reduce the level of harm they experience from their own and other people's use of alcohol, by enhancing their abilities to identify and deal with high risk drinking situations. The SHAHRP intervention consists of a combination of training and resources to equip teachers to conduct a series of eight activity based lessons in the students' first year of secondary schooling (12 to 13 years old), with five 'booster' sessions in the following year (13 to 14 years old). The formative development of the intervention provided a crucial period for designing, piloting and refining intervention strategies to ensure that they were conceptually sound, acceptable and motivating to participating students and teachers. Phase 1 of the SHAHRP intervention (Year 8 component) was implemented in six Perth metropolitan high schools during terms two and three in 1997. This involved 29 teachers and approximately 1100 students. Teachers from all intervention schools have been interviewed regarding their impressions and recommendations for modifying the programme. In addition, students have provided written comments regarding their impressions and recommendations for modifications. Further refinements are to be made to the programme based on these comments. The majority of comments from both teachers and students were positive, with all schools stating that they will include the SHAHRP programme in their future Year 8 and 9 health curricula. It is too early in the life of the project to comment on the effectiveness of the SHAHRP intervention regarding behaviour change, however the comments made by both students and teachers regarding the teaching programme indicate that the SHAHRP intervention was faithfully implemented and viewed by both groups as a positive and beneficial resource in alcohol education.