Staff from Health Promotion and the Outer Hebrides Alcohol & Drug Partnership participated in an evening workshop, held by Fast Forward on 1 March. The workshop demonstrated to participants on how to use drama to look at risk taking behaviour with young people.  Alcohol use was the focus of the session on the day.

The workshop was aimed at volunteers, practitioners and leaders who work directly with young people in a variety of different Youth work projects, organisation and groups.

Young people are often confused about health issues and may have accepted as true many myths that are in common circulation. The Workshop provided training to attendees on ways in which they could discuss, debate and interact and work through scenarios that aimed to be inclusive of all the young people you may be working with and enabling them to take part without undue stress and in a medium which would mean they were not dictated to or told how to behave.

The workshop explored how to use drama to address health and wellbeing issues so the participants can use theatre to look at risk taking behaviour. Based on new material designed by the Fast Forward team, the sessions were interactive giving participant’s knowledge, confidence and understanding of a variety of games, activities, exercises and information that can be used to create a short performance or used in a fun interactive session.

Staff now await the training pack/action pack by Fast Forward and once received it is expected to be shared so work can be developed around any generic health topic.

For further information please contact Angela Grant, ADP Development Officer, Health Promotion Department, tel. 01851 762021 or email: angela.adp@nhs.net