Peer News and Views: Perspectives on Peer Education
This issue of Peer News and Views highlights our most longstanding peer education program, Challenges, Beliefs and Changes (CBC). CBC is a program that trains high school students to promote choices and decision making about alcohol and other drugs with students in grades eight and nine. 2008 will mark the 20th anniversary of support for this program by the Masonic Foundation of Ontario. During this time, we have trained thousands of high school students in our two day workshops, and each time our instructors are thrilled to discover young people who are eager to learn, committed to teaching others and discovering a passion for helping that will stay with them in their professional careers and personal lives. This issue of Peer News and Views features an article by Dawn T Maracle who participated in the CBC program right at the start and has kept in touch over the years. There is an interview by PAD's Executive Director with three grade 11 student peer leaders as well as an article on Garth McCurdy, who is one of PAD's Peer Education Trainers. It also includes information on two of PAD's other peer programs; What's With Weed and Acting Responsibly.
To download a pdf file of Peer News and Views click here
Taking Charge program: Young Women, Alcohol and Sexual Assault
Parent Action Drugs is taking the lead on a new project, Taking Charge: Young Women and Sexual Assault. PAD is working with young women to explore the issue of alcohol and sexual assault among young women aged 16-18 years old.
Unfortunately, many young women experience sexual assault particularly in settings where alcohol is present. For this project sexual assault is defined broadly to include sexual teasing, harassment, unwanted touching and unwanted sexual activity. Often young women are not aware that an assault has taken place until later and/or sometimes the young women are less than able to resist at the time.
This project will raise awareness of the issue and encourage young women to support one another through an increased understanding of sexual assault and the role of alcohol.
The Taking Charge project will also provide resources to health professionals working with young women to increase their ability to respond effectively to this problem and also encourage young women to talk about the issue and consider strategies to reduce their risk of sexual assault through group activities.
Consultations with mothers of 16-18 year old women will guide PAD in the development of a resource for mothers/caregivers to better understand the issue and also encourage dialogue with their daughters about alcohol and sexual assault.
This project is funded by the Ministry of the Attorney General, Ontario Victim Services Secretariat.
Reaching Out to Younger Women to Prevent Breast Cancer
Parent Action on Drugs (PAD) received funding from the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation - Ontario Chapter for a project entitled: Check it Out: An Assessment of Young Women’s Interest In and Knowledge of the Impact of Alcohol, Nutrition and Physical Activity on Breast Health. Through our work with youth, we became aware of an important fact: many young women do not know that alcohol use is associated with increased breast cancer risk.
During this project we worked in collaboration with youth and health promotion partners, to conduct focus groups and surveys in both English and French with young women aged 16 to 20. We wanted to understand their issues and needs regarding lifestyle factors which affect breast health and how to mesh these needs into language, messaging and behavioural goals that would be acceptable to them in order to reduce their risks for breast cancer and promote breast health.
We heard from 355 young women who indicated that:
- They are drinking often, they are not as physically fit as they think they should be and they are not eating as well as they think they should.
- They believe that they will improve their eating and physical activity patterns in the next five years, but the majority do not think they will change their drinking patterns.
In their own words:
“I do not frequently go out on drinking binges – when I do decide to party I make the most of it”
“Everything is unhealthy and drinking every once in a while is fun”
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- They have little to no knowledge about the links between risk factors and breast cancer, although more knew about these links for healthy eating than either of the other factors.
- They are interested in having this information because the majority said they try to be as healthy as they can.
In their own words:
“ It’s important to take this seriously”
“Start the education early, so that we can have a chance to make the right lifestyle choices from an early age”
“ Let the young women ask questions [about] what they want to know”
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Our partnership will continue to look towards ways to support young women in their quest for healthy lifestyle choices and their right to make informed choices.
We would like to thank all the young women who took the time to so thoughtfully complete the survey and all those who directed them to the survey site. We would also like to thank our project partners: the Niagara Regional Public Health, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the Physical Activity Resource Centre of Ontario Physical and Health Education Association, The Nutrition Resource Centre of the Ontario Public Health Association, FOCUS Resource Centre, the Ontario Drug Awareness Partnership and the Canadian Breast Cancer Network.
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