Hope UK

Hope UK - Enabling young people
to make drug-free choices

Hope UK is a national drug and alcohol education charity for children and young people, founded in 1855 as the UK Band of Hope, when alcohol was a serious threat to the wellbeing of many, being cheap and freely available. Alcohol is, once again, a significant obstacle to young people achieving their potential, with many drinking well in excess of recommended daily allowances for adults! The charity Alcohol Concern found that an average of 36 children a day end up in hospital because of their drinking.

For the past eighteen years, Hope UK been recruiting and training suitable volunteers to become Drug Educators in their own communities. Even though the course takes 120 hours to complete and includes three compulsory training weekends, we have had 200 or more volunteers working for us as Drug Educators over the last few years.

With Government funding cuts affecting the ability of many statutory and voluntary groups to continue delivering drug education within and outside of schools, Hope UK Drug Educators are able to fill the gap.

Naturally, training to a high standard is costly and, although training is free to volunteers, it costs Hope UK about £858 per Drug Educator. We continue to support them afterwards by linking them to educational opportunities in their area, paying their travel costs and supplying them with resources like educational games and ‘beer’ goggles. An annual conference is provided to help keep Educators abreast of the latest drug and alcohol information and educational techniques.

Since 2009, we have concentrated our efforts on recruiting teams of about ten volunteers in specific areas and training them together. The lasting bonds of friendship formed during the practical training weekends enable them to work together and support each other in meeting the community’s need for drug and alcohol education. Thus far, we have established teams in Kingston, Newham and Watford, with a team in Bexley completing their training next weekend. Eight one-day-per-week paid Local Project Workers are recruiting teams in North East Scotland, Co Armagh in Northern Ireland, Newcastle, Sheffield, Cornwall, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Southampton, and Poole and Bournemouth.

We continue to support the established teams and existing individual voluntary Drug Educators throughout the UK.

Sarah Brighton, Chief Executive Officer, said, “We are really grateful for Ansvar’s ongoing support, especially in this time of economic uncertainty when many charities are struggling to make ends meet.”

• Hope UK 2011 Report (362KB PDF)