Following on from our successful NHS funded Alcohol Hotspots projects, our work has gained further momentum by joining forces with other professionals including the Police, Youth Service, Fire Service and Safer Neighbourhoods Teams to create the 'Neighbourhood Alliance'.
darts' work with the Neighbourhood Alliance under the banner of Positive Futures - Arts aims to engage children and young people in their own communities to assess youth drinking and/or substance misuse and then use the arts as a tool to explore some of the issues and explore the choices they make and the agencies that can help them.
To do this artists are out in Doncaster on a Friday night... on the street... outside the off license... in the park... where young people hang out...
In recent weeks, artists have been using music, DJing, circus skills, spray can art and airbrush art out on the streets.
Images of iconic figures that have experienced problems in their lives through alcohol and substance misuse have been created in the style of Warhol. Lots of discussion took place with young people giving examples of Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson and Pete Docherty as people having problems with both illegal and prescribed drugs.
Another interesting development has been the Fire Service extraction exercise – cutting a volunteer out from a car as if they had been involved in a road traffic accident due to drink/drug driving. As well as being very spectacular, the exercise proved an excellent stimulus for issue based discussion and visual art work.
The response from young people has been positive, with good levels of engagement and a marked decrease in anti-social behaviour in the areas worked in. For example the Neighbourhood Alliance was recently identified by the Fire Service as contributing to anti-social behavior fire incidents dropping from 20 to zero in a three week period in one area where the project was active.
So far the Alliance has worked in Stainforth, Bentley New Village, Mexborough and Carcroft.
Read more....
Positive Futures case study - Sue's story
Find out more about the Positive Futures programme
Members of the Neighbourhood Alliance:
• Youth Service
• Youth Offending Service
• Positive Futures (Doncaster Positive Futures (Sports) and Doncaster darts Positive Futures (Arts)
• Police Serivce
• Fire Service
• Safer Neighbourhood Teams
• Better Deal (Young Persons Drugs & Alcohol Service)
• Contraception and Sexual Health Clinic
• Terrance Higgins Trust
• NHS Ambulance Service
• Local community groups