In The Classroom:
This autumn the Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) programme continues to come on stream. Each school devises its own programme within departmental guidelines with the co-operation of teachers and parents.
The Irish Social, Personal and Health Education curriculum (SPHE) has a broad focus which helps young people make good decisions based on fostering self-worth and offering good information within a moral framework.
Specific Projects
Primary school children have The Space Challenge and The Space Quest - fun and interesting healthy eating packs
Bi Follain (Be Healthy) and First Steps/Up And Away/Out And About/Look After Yourself are health programmes which include personal development and confidence-building. Action For Life is a physical education programme for primary schools.
The Smoke Free Leitrim Project is two years through a five-year programme in which 450 children - all 4th-class children in Leitrim's 39 primary schools - are involved. "The aim is to take them over the transition from 6th-class to first year. There are class-based lessons, parental involvement and key media support in which the kids know they're the smoke-free kids and proud of it," says Anne McAteer, of the North Western Health Board's Health Promotion Service.
On My Own Two Feet is a post-primary programme aimed at developing personal and social skills around substance abuse: alcohol, cannabis, ecstasy, solvents and other drugs. Running since 1993, the programme can be used in conjunction with the SPHE curriculum or stand alone.
Suicide
Suicide is the most common cause of death among 15-24-year-old Irish males. Current figures reveal a rate of 19.5 per 100,000 for young men compared with 2.1 per 100,000 among young women. The recent Report of the National Task Force on Suicide recommends that the SPHE programme at primary and post-primary school should include modules on positive mental health, depression awareness and anger control skills.
The Samaritans offer a service to secondary schools whereby they'll visit fifth-year students twice during the year to talk about healthy ways of coping with exam stress and general emotional problems.
Out And About
The National Youth Health Programme is a partnership between the National Youth Council of Ireland, the Health Promotion Unity and the Youth Affairs Section of the Department of Education and Science. The Programme has already youth work support packs in the area of drugs, HIV/AIDS and cancer prevention.
The Crinan Youth Project in Dublin's inner city, for teenagers with serious drug problems, sees drug dependence as an issue not just for the individual: it works with the individual, the family and the community. There is full-time attendance by the young people in a programme which includes drug education, personal and cultural development, art, drama, literary, numeracy, computer skills, cookery, sport, yoga, meditation and complementary medicine. There is group, personal and family counselling. A parental education programme is developed through parent support groups.
Family Values
One of the best kept secrets is the Eastern Health Board's Community Mothers programme begun in 1988 and modelled on the Bristol Child Development Programme. A parental support project, it develops the skills of the young parent by building on self-esteem and focusing on health care, nutrition and overall child development. It is run for mothers, by mothers, and more than 1,000 young mothers are currently involved.
A number of food and health projects is taking place in low-income communities where peer learning is used to teach mothers about food, healthy eating, shopping, budgeting, reading labels and cooking balanced family meals. The initiative is co-sponsored by the Eastern Health Board and the Health Promotion Unit.