Why does nothing like this exist in the UK?
Posted by Cheap-Rate-8996@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 23 comments
I read an interesting article about "sober recovery" high schools in the United States.
Most teenagers at Independence Academy struggle with alcohol and marijuana abuse. To be admitted, they must pledge to abstain from using and submit to random drug testing. Students are referred by residential drug-treatment programs, school districts, or parents desperate for help.
Nothing about this concept seems bad, to be clear. But everything about this seems distinctly American. To my knowledge, nothing equivalent to this exists in the UK. There are schools that specialise in children with behavioural disorders, of course, but not specifically kids with drug and alcohol addictions. Why might this be the case?
killer_by_design@reddit
In the UK there’s a layered system involving health services, local authorities, schools, and sometimes the justice system. (When it works right) It's a whole approach.
If you've ever worked with children you will have done safeguarding training and you are obligated to make a disclosure if you suspect a child is using drugs. This is usually the first point in which it's identified by the system.
Where it starts to get ropey is that intervention services are (I believe) run by your local authority. Do intervention will vary depending on where you are and the quality of service available in your area.
There's also social services, GPs, and their regularschools that can put intervention plans in place as well.
After that there's the police who can put youth justice pathways in place. That's non criminal interventions such as referrals to the youth offending team or issue a community order rather than prosecute if there have been drug related crimes.
That said I think 90% in the UK will be reliant on their family to deal with it and possibly with some support of charities or resource groups and probably their school.
KonkeyDongPrime@reddit
My sister used to work in the sector for a local authority. As cash ran out, the service went to shit and she left. The ‘shadow school system’ used to refer to these non-mainstream schools and there was a BBC article about it. That was mainly related to substandard facilities being used. The definition has changed so I can’t find the article.
In short, my sister ran one of those schools, that was substandard ie not to current standards, but that was OK as it was an old school building. The problem started when they started combining the streams, so my sister would look after physically, psychologically disabled, temporarily disabled, ex drug addicted, severely bullied, neurodivergent kids, who did not belong in the SEN system. With budget cuts, the council combined the behavioural excluded into the stream, including the offspring of the crime families who were doing the drug dealing to children and severe bullying. Major safeguarding catastrophe.
Cheap-Rate-8996@reddit (OP)
Do you think the US approach is more effective, less effective, or both are valid but just different?
Swimming-Lie5369@reddit
Look into data on % of teenagers who have addiction per capita, service access levels, and relapse rates. That'll tell you what you're looking for.
Random people on Reddit don't just know that.
Cheap-Rate-8996@reddit (OP)
Don't worry, I wasn't going to treat a random Reddit comment as a definitive answer to this. Was just casually asking for their opinion on the difference in approach.
killer_by_design@reddit
Fuck knows.
If I were to hazard a guess drug addiction is probably more recoverable here given that we have the NHS and the long-term effects of it are financially mitigated compared to the US but honestly no idea.
Also I feel like we're more likely to treat addiction as a healthcare issue rather than a criminal one so maybe we've got that over the US?
You can probably just Google drug addiction outcomes UK Vs US and find out. Just did and it says we have a lower mortality rate but that Scotland is going hell for leather to try and change that.
Jayatthemoment@reddit
The state doesn’t largely care if your child is a pisshead because there is no appetite from taxpayers to fund that. People would be disgusted and kick off about it. If it were private, very few British parents would pay for it. The demographic of children wealthy enough to afford it but so fucked they would be taken out of a prestigious private school that would get them into uni is not large.
Brits, for the large part, would not submit to being randomly drug-testing, nor make public pledges to do something that they would feel obliged to adhere to: it is not in our nature to accept a loss of autonomy in that way. Slogans on the wall, etc, seems culty. The kids would take the piss and the parents wouldn’t want their kids there — they’d associate it with those mental American schools that we see documentaries on Netflix about — the WWASP stuff.
British kids don’t have the access to prescription drugs that American kids do — most people get healthcare through the state and they are not flinging around pain pills and Xanax and fentanyl and such. Brit kids tend to get into ketamine.
Cheap-Rate-8996@reddit (OP)
Yeah, I do think there's a cultural dimension to this. I've heard in other places on Reddit of parents drug-testing their own kids at home. Again, for whatever reason I just couldn't imagine that happening here.
KonkeyDongPrime@reddit
Because as fucked up as the UK is becoming, it’s still nowhere near the level of dystopian nightmare that the USA is.
Cheap-Rate-8996@reddit (OP)
Plenty of teenagers are using drugs and alcohol in this country, too. I don't think it's that the problem doesn't exist here, just that we seem to take a different approach (or maybe don't see it as much of a problem)?
KonkeyDongPrime@reddit
Social services often get involved if kids are on drugs or drink.
Cheap-Rate-8996@reddit (OP)
We're probably getting closer to the answer here. I would imagine most of the kids sent to these schools would instead be referred to CAMHS in this country.
KonkeyDongPrime@reddit
Why don’t you ask in the USA? Or a specialist sub?
My sister works in state education previously outside of the mainstream, so I’m slightly more informed about how it works, or it’s supposed to work in the UK, but I have no clue about the equivalent details in the US.
ActionBirbie@reddit
When you look into the numbers involved, you begin to understand that there is no country within a million miles of the US when it comes to drugs:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/dec/19/nikki-haley/haley-is-correct-that-fentanyl-deaths-top-casualti/
Cultural_Tank_6947@reddit
Enough studies have shown the problem is twice as big in the US as it is in the UK/Europe.
Alcohol is bigger problem than drugs in the UK, but still lower than the US.
So a different approach is definitely warranted.
Maleficent-Win-6520@reddit
We don’t have this issue in the uk
Suspicious-Rub8976@reddit
I was made to take drug tests in the mid 00s at about 14/15 under social care due to reports to the children's panel. I never lied about smoking weed and shock horror I was positive for it, nothing happened except my social worker told me to stop, I felt like I was being treated as a criminal which pushed me further away, I stopped telling the only adults in my life (social workers) the truth completely after that
I don't believe being sent to a specialised school for stoners would have changed any of that lol
Pebbley@reddit
In the UK we are introduced to alcohol at a young age, we grow up In a culture of pubs, most pubs welcome children, and if you eat in say, a restaurant or pub people aged between 16-17 they can legally drink wine, cider or beer with a table meal.
The majority of parents teach their children to respect alcohol, that said, by age 14 the majority have drunk alcohol.
spoo4brains@reddit
The only thing to learn from the US in regards to education and healthcare is what not to do.
ActionBirbie@reddit
Because the US has a problem with drugs and junkies in a massive massive way - If you were to look into the numbers of the issue they would blow your mind.
There is no such equivalent in the developed world.
TrifectaOfSquish@reddit
Level of need
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