Preventing Adolescent Drug Use: the development, design and implementation of the first year of 'NE Choices'.

Illicit drug use by adolescents in the UK is of major concern. Recent surveys suggest that increasing proportions of young people are using drugs, that the number of different drugs used has increased, and that young people are experimenting at a younger age (Roberts et al., 1995). As part of its response to these problems, the UK Government established the Home Office Drugs Prevention Initiative (DPI), a nationwide programme of interventions combining central guidance and local initiatives, and designed to establish best practice in the field (Home Office, 1996). 'NE Choices' was one of the largest interventions in the programme, a 3-year multi-component social influences intervention targeting 13-16-year-old school children in the north-east of England. Following a 3-year development and pilot phase, the intervention began its full implementation in January 1997 and ran until April 1999. A longitudinal quasi-experimental study measured drug use behaviour before, during and after the programme, while process and impact evaluation studies examined delivery and immediate response. This paper describes the development, design and delivery of the programme's first year, the 'Year Nine intervention'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]