Yateley School – innovative work on Smoking Prevention

YATELEY School has shown an innovative approach in encouraging young people not to start smoking and aims to persuade young smokers to quit before they become addicted.

During July the school carried out a survey of pupils in conjunction with the Commercial Environmental Health department at Hart District Council using funding from Smoke Free Hampshire and Isle of Wight.

The results have just been published and this work will now underpin policies being developed within the school on persuading young people not to take up smoking as well as developing closer links with colleagues in the trading standards team in preventing the sale of tobacco products to under aged children in Hart.

Four of the staff from the school including Grant Donohoe ( lead for PHSE),  Karen Stephens ( school nurse) , Lynne Grisdale and  Leah German  ( Assistant Head s of House) have attended a two day course hosted by the Quit4life Service on how to support people wanting to quit. This has led to school plans to launch its own Quit Smoking Service.

Another initiative will be the development of a Smoking Prevention website to be designed by Year 8 pupils.  Prizes (HMV or  i tunes vouchers) will be awarded to the best web sites and the winning site will be hosted by Hampshire County Council. Parents will be encouraged to participate in local NHS Quit4life quit smoking clinics.  A drop in session is held locally at Yateley Medical Centre on Thursday evenings.

Mr Mark Jackman Head teacher at Yateley School commented:

“We hope this proactive approach will encourage a reduction in the number of young people taking up smoking “.

Hampshire County Council Trading Standards Officers will be using the survey information which indicates that most young people who buy cigarettes get them from newsagents.

Visits, advice to local businesses and testing will take place.

Testing shops using young volunteers this year so far has discovered 12% of shops selling to under 18’s – a big improvement on the 25% figure found in 2008/09.

Hampshire  Leader, Cllr Ken Thornber said: ”Businesses selling cigarettes have a duty to help prevent underage smoking and although statistics on test purchases are improving, it appears that some are still mistakenly thinking that cigarettes are a product that can be bought by  16-year-olds.

“Trading Standards officers are working closely with Hampshire retailers to ensure staff are fully educated on the laws governing underage sales.”

For further advice on Quit4Life Smoking Services contact:

www.quit4life.nhs.uk

Tel 0845 602 4663

Text QUIT to 60123

For further information on the project: contact:

Virginia Taylor, on behalf of Environmental Services Hart District Council virginia.taylor@dsl.pipex.com or tel  07887 856242

For more information on under age sales text 60003 start message HANTS UNDERAGE or visit  http://www3.hants.gov.uk/underagesales.htm