Written question WQ82571
- Asked by
- Darren MillarConservative
- To be answered by
- Minister for Health and Social Services
- Tabled
- Due
- Answered
- Time to answer
- 12 days
Question
What action is the Welsh Government taking to ensure young people in Wales are educated about the dangers posed by substance misuse?
Answer
Answered by Minister for Health and Social Services
As part of our wider support for prevention and substance misuse services, we ring fence £2.75m to support early intervention and education work with children and young people.
We jointly fund the Wales Police Schools Programme with the four police forces in Wales, which operates in all primary and secondary schools. It delivers education about substance misuse and wider community and personal safety issues at all key stages of the curriculum.
We want all children and young people to be healthy, safe and happy individuals. One of the four purposes of the new Curriculum for Wales is to support children and young people to become ‘healthy confident individuals’. It will include a Health and Well-being Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE) which will enhance the new curriculum’s focus on the health and well-being of learners. This innovative development aims to ensure that learning around physical, mental and emotional health is provided to all young people in Wales.
Areas of Learning and Experience are flexible to support learners. The ‘Descriptions of Learning’ in the guidance includes details of how learners should progress on their journey through the continuum of learning. A Description of Learning under ‘Developing physical health and well-being has lifelong benefits’ statement relates to enabling learners to “How lifestyle choices can impact the human body (including diet, drug use and exercise).”
Learners will also be supported to develop understand and recognise the connections between physical and emotional changes that occur and to be able to adapt and modify behaviour to support their physical and emotional health. The ‘Developing Physical health and well-being as lifelong benefits’ statement also promotes learning to “recognise some of the behaviours, conditions and situations that affect my physical health and well-being, and I know how to respond and get help in a safe way” which will support learners to develop knowledge and understanding on how to manage behaviours and conditions.