About our research
We’re delivering our research as part of a government funded programme designed to address reduce the use and harms of alcohol and other drug use. The funding is provided by the Department of Health and Social Care, the UK Government Joint Combating Drugs Unit, and the National Institute of Health and Social Care Research.
You can read a summary of our research below.
Why this research matters
Use of drugs by young people aged under 18 can have long-lasting effects, so it is important to try and prevent use completely, or at least try and delay it for as long as possible. Drug prevention programmes are ways to stop, delay, and interrupt the use of drugs. Whilst some school-based prevention programmes work, most don’t, and some can even lead to an increase in use.
Summary of our research
The problem
Even programmes that work aren’t currently being delivered in enough schools to make a difference, and a shortage of funding means they’re often only available for schools to use for a short time. This means it’s important to carry out research to find out which approaches work, and what needs to be done to help schools deliver effective programmes in the long term.
Our programme
Our programme is called The Illicit Project UK (TIP-UK). You can read more about it in the Programme section of the website. It’s an educational programme delivered over 3 x 35-minute sessions, is online, and involves interactive classroom discussions.
Australian origins
TIP-UK was originally developed in Australia, and is based on teaching young people about how alcohol and other drugs affect the brain, helps them to develop the skills to resist social pressures to use drugs, and how to seek help if they develop problems. Earlier studies in Australia showed that it was effective and leads to meaningful reductions in drug (and alcohol) use up to 12 months later.
UK adaptation
We worked with young people and teachers to make the content more relevant to the UK, including creating new material, changing the target age group, and making sure it could be delivered as part of the compulsory health and social education curriculum.
We want to find out whether the programme is as successful at reducing drug use in the UK as it was in Australia. Part of our research will also try and understand how schools might be able to deliver TIP-UK in the long-term, after this project has finished.
We will include at least 48 schools into the research. 16 will deliver TIP-UK in Autumn term 2026; and 16 will deliver their normal drugs education curriculum. The remaining 16 will deliver TIP-UK, but with extra support from local young people’s drug services (called TIP-UK+), to make sure that if young people were encouraged to seek further help after receiving the programme, their teachers would know how to support them. This would also be an opportunity for services to establish better links with schools, and to see if delivery through services improves the chances of schools being able to deliver TIP-UK in the long term. We will survey young people about their drug use at the start of the programme and three months later. Interviews will capture the experiences of young people, school staff, and drug support professionals.
Research summary overview
A copy of the baseline questionnaire can be found below