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Government policy places strong emphasis on the value of school‐based drug education, and offers guidelines around the development of appropriate drug education. This paper is based on research conducted with 575 young people via a questionnaire survey which sought to obtain their views on what constitutes effective drug education. Findings included strong support from young people for school‐based drug education; suggested roles for parents, ex‐drug users, friends and youth workers in drug education; a desire for clear facts about drugs and drug use in order to enable young people to make informed decisions; support for the use of interactive teaching methods; and the need for drug education to start in primary school. These findings highlight the potential value of involving young people in the development of drug education in order to ensure maximum engagement in and learning from school‐based drug education programmes.

SERVICE USER PARTICIPATION IN housing and support is an important issue in national services. Nonetheless, research has found wide variations in the levels of service user participation in housing and support schemes. This paper reports on a case study evaluation of approaches to service user participation in housing and support, drawing out key requirements: for flexible approaches to service user participation, to embed service user participation within organisations, for independent facilitation, and the importance of the participation process.

The development of drug education for young people in the UK has been the subject of various policy statements in recent years. With the publication of the Government White Papers research has drawn attention to the potential benefits of peer education as a method of drug prevention due mainly to the credibility of young people with their peers. This credibility might be based on age alone, or may also involve credibility stemming from the young person’s own drug use, past or present. This paper discusses issues relating to the effectiveness of peer drug education with particular reference to two evaluations carried out recently in South West England; brings together the most recent literature on peer education; and considers the appropriateness of different approaches in schools and youth work settings. This paper contributes significantly to the debate on the use of peer education as a health education approach.

This article presents the views of board members from two primary care groups in South West England on benefits and concerns relating to the imminent development of primary care trusts, and perceived implications for service delivery and management arrangements.

This paper focuses on one aspect of Health Promotion Service Avon’s Schools for Health Project 1997/98, which is the development, implementation, analysis and evaluation of an initial review questionnaire completed by teachers, non‐teaching staff, parents and pupils. This provided a baseline audit tool in 13 schools. The initial review questionnaire covered topics within the areas of environment, school ethos, staff and pupil wellbeing, curriculum and community. This helped schools to identify areas for development via the project. Benefits arising from the initial review exercise identified by schools included: giving all school members the chance to put their views across; engaging people in the project and raising awareness of the school’s involvement in the project; and giving legitimacy to concerns raised informally by staff. The importance of ensuring that any questionnaire given to non‐teaching staff and pupils is “jargon‐free” and “user‐friendly” was highlighted by some of the teachers involved.