Activities:

Optimal use of the programmes in this series will depend on the context in individual schools and colleges, work undertaken previously, class size, ability levels and time constraints.

Before viewing
It’s always useful to find out how much young people know themselves. It can be affirming for them and help to identify misconceptions and areas of focus for future work.

Group or class activity: On large sheets of paper write the names of the drugs that appear in Programme 1: alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, crack and ecstasy.

Ask what students know about each drug and record this. You might want to use the following headings:

• What is it?
• How is it used?
• Short-term effects
• Long-term effects
• Law

Don’t spend too long on the task; just enough to have an overview and judge students’ levels of understanding. Display the outcomes. Do the same with the drugs featured in Programmes 2 and 3 and keep adding to the information displayed while working through the series.

After viewing
Get students to add any additional information from the film. Was there anything new, surprising or missing, or perhaps something they would like to question? What made the greatest impact? What do they feel they need to know more about?

Activity 1
There’s a strong emphasis on harm reduction in Programme 1. As a class, or in small groups, discuss the harm-reduction issues surrounding each of the five drugs in the film.
If time is available, compile a harm-reduction summary.

Activity 2
Liberty’s story. Ask the class to identify the origins of her problem and how she progressed to alcoholism. Are there any similarities between her story and that of the girls going for a night out? What are the differences? Are there any similarities with Alex’s story about cocaine? You may wish to show this section again.