Is anybody there?

Below are a number of scenarios, which can be used to work with young people in groups.

Aims to:

Reinforce prevention messages
Raise awareness of local services
Impact of drug use on others
Challenge attitudes
Looks at individual and collective responsibilities
Empower

Part 1:

To enable the young people to recognise that drug use affects not only the user, but those around them, and to enable young people to talk about services available locally that the characters could access, so that they could gain support.

Split the young people into groups and give each group a scenario to work from.
Explain to each group that you would like them to examine the scenario and report back to the other groups on what choices the person faces, and the influencing factors in each character’s life.
Ask groups to report back one by one, while the other groups listen to their response, before opening up the discussions.

When groups report back, open up discussions on each scenario pointing out details of the characters life apart from what problems the character may face, if the situation does not change. Look at the possible health impact on the character. Look at where each character could go for help or advice.

Part 2:

Get the young people to go back into their groups, give each group a different perspective, each group must give their answers back:

As the person in the scenario.
As the family of the person.
As the friend of the person in the scenario.
As the police.
As a drugs service worker.

Get each group to look at what they would do? How they would do it? What would they want to happen? How would they change the situation? What problems have to be overcome?

Ask the group if it was more or less difficult looking at the scenarios from a different perspective, and if so, why.

Scenario 1

Sandy is 22. She has two young children, aged 4 and 2. She is married to Dave, who is in the Army. Sandy and Dave have moved around quite a lot. They moved into the area about 6 months ago, and Dave has been away for the last 4 months. He is away from home a great deal. They don’t have much money, so she never goes out and does not know anybody. She is quite shy and feels very lonely and isolated. Her nearest family lives over 150 miles away. Sandy has taken to drinking a lot to make her feel less lonely. She is now drinking every day, which is making her have even less money. She is having trouble sleeping, so the doctor has given her sleeping tablets. She is finding that she is drinking earlier and earlier in the day, just to get by.

Scenario 2

Kenny is 10 and lives in a children home. He has lived there for a year now. His mum died last year, and his dad had left them many years before. Kenny started smoking cannabis recently and has started smoking more and more. He says it helps him to feel better, he hates living in a home and wants a family again. He misses his mum, and he’s not too sure what she died of, only that she had a bad chest. Kenny is asthmatic.

Scenario 3

Sarah is 11, has just moved into the area and started in Year 7. She is very tall for her age, some people say gangly. She gets teased a lot by the other girls, and a small group have started pushing and kicking her when they see her. She is feeling miserable and very lonely. On the way to school the other day, the group of girls trapped her in an alleyway and took her lunch money. She is frightened and ashamed. She doesn’t want to make it worse by telling someone, and she doesn’t want to worry her parents, as they are very busy trying to settle into new jobs. Sarah found a plastic bag with glue in it yesterday. She decided to try it herself after school today, and she thought it may make her feel better. It was the first time. Sarah died at 11pm this evening.

Scenario 4

Jennie is 17. She is in college studying for her A levels. She wants to go to university. Jennie has started going clubbing at weekends with some new friends, she has met at college. That is where she met Rick. She fancied him straight away. He wasn’t like any other boyfriend she had ever had. Before long she and Rick were a regular item, and she felt totally in love with him. Most weekends they would go clubbing together. Rick introduced her to Ecstasy, and they both took it regularly. They were taking more and more as they built up a tolerance to it. Rick worked, but they were getting short of money. Rick suggested that she sell a few pills at college to get some extra cash, so she did. Last week she got caught, the college called the police, and she is being charged with supplying. Her parents are distraught.

Scenario 5

Billy is 17 and is going to be a dad. His girlfriend is pregnant. Billy is a heroin user. He started when he was 15, all his mates were using. Billy’s girlfriend also uses. Billy has recently started injecting, because he has developed a tolerance and needed a bigger hit. He is spending a lot of money on his and his girlfriend’s gear and is robbing and shoplifting to get more cash.

Scenario 6

Lyndi is just 15. She ran away from home, because her step dad beat her. She has ended up on the street and met a lad, who said she could stay at his place, but in order to pay her way, she has to work as a prostitute. She has met some other girls about the same age, who do the same. One of them is helping her get through it, by introducing her to heroin. It helps most of the time. She needs more and more money, as the lad she stays with takes most of it. The other girls say she could get more money for having sex without a condom on.

Scenario 7

Jed is 15. He was pretty good at school and loves sports. He is popular with girls and has lots of mates. Jed has been smoking cannabis for ages now, mostly at weekends. He has a good time with his mates. Recently he has started smoking daily and has been kicked off the football team. He is starting to miss more and more school and gets quite aggressive if he doesn’t smoke. He is feeling very tired and is getting depressed. His mates are moving on, and his girlfriend has now dumped him.

Scenario 8

Darren lives with his mum and works in an office at an insurance company. He has smoked cannabis for a while. His mum knows about it and doesn’t mind, as he was doing well and felt it was harmless. Darren got sacked two weeks ago, for constantly being late for work. Darren has not told his mum, as he doesn’t want to worry her and felt he could get another job, and she would never know he was sacked. He is having trouble finding another job and is running out of money. He has started taking Speed to gear himself up a bit. He has had the last few lots on credit, until he gets a job.

Scenario 9

Ellie lives with her dad who works long hours. Ellie’s parents split up a while ago, and she does not see much of mum now, as she has a new life. Ellie used to go out with her friends all the time, and they always had a great time at raves and clubs. They all take Ecstasy. Ellie started drinking quite a bit, before she went out to get herself in the mood and then took Ecstasy as well. She feels very down a lot of the time and lonely. She comes and goes pretty much as she pleases. When she is alone. she has started seeing things and hearing voices. She thinks someone is watching her, she is getting frightened of going out just in case they get her. She wants it all to stop, but doesn’t know what to do.

Scenario 10

Pete was in a band. Music was what he lived for. The band were doing really well, had just signed a record deal and were supporting a major band on their UK tour. Pete has smoked a bit of cannabis in the past, but not much and had never taken anything else. When the band were out celebrating their new deal, and Pete was offered some GHB (Liquid Ecstasy), he took some. Pete is in a coma.

Scenario 11

Scott is 18. He has just come out of a youth offending institute for stealing cars. He wants a lot out of life and wants to move his life forward. He has sworn he will never go back inside. He met up with some of his old mates, and they talked over the good times they used to have. They asked Scott to go with him to a new club, which had opened while he was inside. On the way one of his mates got out some crack. Scott had taken it before. They were having such a good time, that he didn’t want to say no, so smoked the crack with his mates. When they arrived at the club, there was a queue and some other lads, whom they had always disliked. A fight started, and things got very messy. The police turned up. Scott is now in custody.

Scenario 12

Two 13 year old girls bought some tablets from a year 11, that he said were a type of Ecstasy. That evening the girls took the tablets on their way out to the youth club. During the evening they felt ill, so started walking home. One of them collapsed, but there was little the other could do. A man walking his dog found the other girl on the common. She was incoherent, crying and shouting for help. Luckily he phoned an ambulance, and now both girls are in hospital.

Gloucestershire YPSMS

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