Contents
Contents 1
Introduction 3
Young People’s Drinking Behaviour (Caerphilly County Borough) 3
The Caerphilly Response 4
Research aims and objectives 6
The UK’s culture of binge drinking 7
The Government’s Response 8
Young People’s Drinking Behaviour (All Wales) 9
Review of the Literature 10
The Search Strategy. 10
Key Articles 11
Newburn and Shiner (2001) 11
May (1992) 11
Pavis et al. (1997) 11
Forsyth and Barnard (2000) 13
Harnett et al. (2000) 14
Brain et al. (2000) 16
Coleman and Cater (2003) 19
Developing a Research Approach 24
Epistemology 24
The research question 24
Political and ethical considerations. 25
The purpose of the research. 25
Costs and hoped for benefits 26
Privacy and confidentiality 27
Selection 28
Funding 28
Research aims and methods 29
Information and Consent 30
Dissemination 32
Impact on children and young people 32
Methods adopted 33
Methods of analysis 34
The use of software in the qualitative analysis 36
Thoughts on validity and reliability 37
Results and remarks 40
Results relating to the process 40
Analysis of the initial interviews 41
The manner in which young people are drinking 42
Where young people are drinking 43
Where young people are getting their alcohol 43
Their first experiences 44
Parental attitudes to drinking 44
Young people’s motivations 44
Who is drinking 46
Boundaries 46
Consequences of binge drinking 47
Preventing binge drinking 48
Discussion 50
Spending Time 50
Complex lives 51
The setting 51
Choice of method 52
a) Child Centred Methodology. 52
b) Child centre research techniques 53
Prevention strategies 54
Conclusion 56
a) The research process 56
b) The focus of the research. 56
Appendix 1: Initial themes 58
Bibliography 59
Introduction
Young People’s Drinking Behaviour (Caerphilly County Borough)
For the last three years I have worked as the Young People’s Partnership Officer for the Borough of Caerphilly. The Young People’s Partnership is a multiagency group, responsible for the strategic development of all services for young people, aged eleven to twenty five in the Borough.
In Spring 2002, the partnership commissioned an independent research agency, Communities that Care, to undertake a survey with young people. The survey was designed to provide information on the prevalence of risk and protective factors among young people aged 11-16, and also to assess the current prevalence of problem behaviours within a community. Over 9000 young people took part. Amongst other issues, pupils were asked about their experience of drinking alcohol.
The report identified that there were significant differences in the drinking experiences reported by pupils living in Caerphilly compared to those reported by the all Wales sample, and that pupils living in Caerphilly were significantly more likely to say that they participated in all five drinking behaviours investigated.
This chart identifies that young people in each of the Borough’s planning areas, consistently have higher levels of each of the drinking behaviours than the Welsh national average. This is most marked in the Upper Rhymney Valley.
The Caerphilly Response
The Community Strategy, a partnership approach to planning and delivery of services for the Borough, has identified a small number of beacon projects. These ‘beacons’ are promoted as priorities for action by all agencies involved with the Community Strategy. In response to the findings of the Communities that Care Survey one of these beacons addresses the issue of young people and binge drinking.
A multiagency group, the Young People and Harm Reduction Strategy group has been established to lead this beacon project. Its first task was to review the effectiveness of current interventions for young people. The main findings were:
· despite a plethora of interventions, little impact is being made on the issue of young people and drinking;
· there is a lack of evidence for the effectiveness of interventions in reducing alcohol misuse in young people (Waller et al. 2002, Mulvihill et al. 2005); many programmes have not been robustly evaluated and it is therefore difficult to make judgements on their effectiveness;
· there are some interventions whose evaluation does, however, suggest that they should be discontinued. These include interventions which:
o train teachers;
o enhance knowledge, self-esteem, decision-making and problem solving skills;
o enable young people to resist social and peer pressure. (Foxcroft et al. 2003);
· in reviewing interventions focusing on the prevention of drug use, Canning et al. (2004) suggest there is evidence that:
o programmes delivered in schools can delay the first experimentation with substances, but only briefly and this impact decreases with time;
o programmes delivered universally to all young people, are more effective for those at low risk;
o interactive programmes using peers are more effective than non-interactive programmes. However, the research suggests the peer educators benefit, rather than the recipients of this form of education;
· the Health Development Agency (2002) have additionally identified the following relating to young people’s drinking:
o family processes have a significant impact on young people’s drinking behaviour;
o early results show that family support programmes may have an impact in reducing young people’s drinking;
o young people are able to obtain alcohol easily; sustained police intervention can reduce levels of sales;
o proof of age schemes are not effective in preventing young people obtaining alcohol; young people find ways around restrictions.
Given this information, the Young People and Harm Reduction Strategy group decided to undertake research seeking a broader understanding of the behaviour from the perspective of young people, rather than commission an educational programme to address the issue In relation to binge drinking amongst young people, Coleman and Cater (2005) propose;
“in order to minimise the harm from this risky style of drinking, a credible starting point is to explore the motivations, values and meanings that young people ascribe to such drinking behaviour. Understanding why people drink in this manner is a useful first step in informing policy and practice aimed at reversing the worsening trend.” p 2.
Research aims and objectives
The aim of this study was to identify patterns of binge drinking amongst young people aged 11 – 17 in the Upper Rhymney Valley, and to explore this issue from the young people’s perspective. Binge Drinking is defined in this context as “excessive single session drinking in unsupervised environments.” (Coleman and Cater 2005).
The objectives of the study were:
· to study young people using statutory and non-statutory youth provision in the Upper Rhymney Valley in order to examine levels of binge drinking;
· to ascertain their motivations for this behaviour;
· to identify some of the outcomes that may result;
· to compare the findings to similar research elsewhere;
· to make recommendations to the Young People and Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy group as to the future direction for service development addressing binge drinking.
This dissertation will only report on the first phase of this research project. This aimed to test out the chosen methodology, and the objectives were:
· to identify whether young people would be interested in taking part;
· to identify whether the methods chosen provided sufficient information for addressing the research question;
· to identify whether the methods chosen played to young people’s strengths;
· to test out practical issues such as gaining consent, timings of interviews, planned timetable of data collection, use of tape recorder, choice of venue etc.;
· to examine the adequacy of the research question.
The UK’s culture of binge drinking
Why is binge drinking amongst young people an issue? Pick up national newspapers or watch current affairs programmes and often the topic being debated is binge drinking in the UK. Headlines such as “Britain a nation in the grip of drunkenness” (The Observer 2004), “Under the Influence” (The Guardian 2004) and “Cldn’t Gve a xxxx 4 lst ordrs”, (Panorama 2004) abound.
The media portrays the UK as a place where the culture of binge drinking is at crisis point, bringing scenes of violence, anti-social behaviour and drunken mayhem to the country’s towns and cities. As one Chief Constable identifies; “we’re not drunk, we’re drunk and angry, out of it and up for it”. (Raynor 2004) p2, and young people are learning this behaviour at a younger and younger age.
Levy and Scott- Clarke (2004) propose that this change in UK drinking culture has resulted from an aggressive and sustained campaign by the British Drinks Industry. The Government’s Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy 2004 identifies the current costs associated with binge drinking as £21.05 billion. Levy and Scott-Clarke 2004, however, note;
“income from the drinks industry is more than £30billion a year, incorporating £7billion in excise duties paid to the government, plus one million jobs created. So subtracting one from the other leaves 8.9 billion reasons why Britain is likely to remain drunk” p3.
The last twenty years has seen the replacement of small brewery owned pubs by larger hybrid pub/club type venues. This has been combined with the development of stronger, more palatable alcoholic drinks to attract the young and extended opening hours promoted by New Labour from 1997 onwards. The result, suggests Chris Allison, Westminster Police Chief is that; “too much alcohol was being poured down the necks of too many people in too small an area. Chaos was inevitable”. (cited in Levy and Scott-Clarke 2004 p5).
The Government’s Response
In response to the issue in England, the Government published the Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy in 2004, which focuses on binge drinking and chronic drinking. The strategy identifies four main ways in which the government can help reduce alcohol related harm:
· “improved, and better targeted, education and communication;
· better identification and treatment of alcohol problems;
· better coordination and enforcement of existing powers against crime and disorder and;
· encouraging the industry to continue promoting responsible drinking and to continue to take a role in reducing alcohol related harm” p16 2004.
The Strategy has, however, been critically received, with concern that many of the key issues have been ignored. Of particular concern is the focus on binge drinkers and chronic drinkers only, and how they are defined. Doll proposed; “reduction in harm caused by drinking can only be achieved by reducing our overall consumption. It doesn’t work to target a minority. The only people I have seen recommend this is the Strategy Unit.” (cited in Levy and Scott-Clark 2004(b))
Plant (2004), suggests the strategy simply accepts that it is not possible to tackle the current levels of drinking. It proposes to prevent further increases, rather than decrease levels of drinking. He further identifies that; “the complex relation people have with alcohol and how deeply embedded the use of alcohol is in our culture is not sufficiently acknowledged” p905.
Strategies to combat substance misuse in Wales have long included alcohol. Both the English and the Welsh Strategies make specific reference to the rising levels of drinking amongst young people under 18. The Welsh Strategy has two objectives for this age group:
· to reduce the proportion reporting weekly consumption of alcohol;
· to reduce the proportion reporting drunkenness.
Young People’s Drinking Behaviour (All Wales)
Roberts et al. (2002) reporting on the findings of the Health Behaviour in School- aged Children Study, identify the proportion of 15 and 16 year olds drinking at least weekly, had increased steadily between 1986 and 1996, with a slight decline in 1998 and 2000. The reported levels of drinking weekly for 15 – 16 years in 2000 were 58% for boys and 50% for girls.
Similarly, levels of young people reported to have been drunk on at least four occasions, increased between 1986 and 1996, with a slight reduction by 2000.
Whilst these national surveys identify a levelling of the proportion of young people drinking regularly, they do show the increasing amount drunk at each session (NFER 2004).
Review of the Literature
The Search Strategy.
In reviewing the literature there have been three elements to the search strategy.
i. Electronic Database Search.
A series of searches were undertaken using Medline, Cinahl, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts and HealthPromis (the bibliographic database of the Health Development Agency). They were searched for various combinations of the following headings for the period 1980 – 2005:
· young people;
· adolescents;
· binge drinking;
· primary prevention;
· alcohol;
· effectiveness;
· motivation;
· influences.
ii. Search of relevant young people’s organisations’ published reports, for example, National Youth Agency, Wales Youth Agency, and Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
iii. Identification of relevant policy documents through Children and Young People’s Framework Partnership meetings locally, nationally and with the Welsh Assembly Government.
These identified several hundred references, which were reviewed for relevance. In their comprehensive literature review on young people and alcohol, Newburn and Shiner (2001) identify that much of the current literature has a quantitative focus and has been criticised for failing to engage with the key issues behind young people’s drinking;
“prevalence rates and levels of use have dominated research in this field and little attention has been paid to identifying characteristics which may predict different patterns of use….there is considerable descriptive data on young people’s drinking, much less is known about why British young people drink, the place and meaning of alcohol in young people’s lives and the social contexts for drinking.” p. 4.
Given the nature of this research project, the search was refined through reading key abstracts and then obtaining the full articles for those which in the main had an exploratory and qualitative focus. Other papers were included which highlighted other key issues.
Key Articles
Newburn and Shiner (2001)
In reviewing the literature, they note the “schizophrenic” context in which alcohol use amongst young people in Britain is considered. On the one hand, young people in the UK grow up in a culture where alcohol use is an acceptable, enjoyable and widespread activity. On the other hand there is a, “moral panic”, about how much they are drinking and the associated potential harm.
May (1992)
In considering the “moral panic” fuelled by the media regarding young people and alcohol use, he reviewed a number of qualitative and quantitative studies. He found that the studies considered emphasised;
“…the normality of alcohol consumption (and occasional misuse) among the young, and reflect the pervasiveness of alcohol use among the young… It is quite normal for adolescents to drink… Most appear to be able to do this without traumatic or chronic consequences to their health, or disabling legal and social consequences. Nevertheless, it is also apparent that a significant minority of young people place their personal safety and health at risk through chaotic intoxication or systematic alcohol misuse.” p. 112
Pavis et al. (1997)
This paper reports on the drinking behaviour of over one hundred 15 year-olds, living on the East Coast of Scotland, and of the meanings they attach to this behaviour. They were approached through two secondary schools and completed a short questionnaires followed by semi- structured interviews. This study considers the perspective of underage boys and girls and therefore relates closely to the population that concern us in Caerphilly County Borough.