A new campaign has launched this week aimed at raising awareness campaign around the opinions and experiences of young people about drugs and alcohol in the Shankill area.
Over the past few months young people have taken time to share with their understanding of drugs and alcohol in the Greater Shankill Area. It's part of a wider vision from Greater Shankill Youth Connects to support local young people and families.
Their consultation was completed by 250 young people aged between 11 and 21, some of which took part in discussion workshops. Banners explaining some of the findings of those consultations have appeared across the area, to bring attention to the work ongoing, and offer various strands of guidance to those who need it.
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Of those asked, 90% of young people in the area said it’s "easy to access drugs/alcohol", 60% said they would turn to a Parent for help with drugs or alcohol, and 58% say they think Nitrious Oxide (Balloons) are the most dangerous drugs.
Speaking to Belfast Live, Sarah Jane Waite, from the Greater Shankill Partnership said: "We are currently delivering a programme for the Executive Office under their Communities in Transition funding. It is a youth programme but what we have created is called Greater Shankill Youth Connects which is a network of organisations who work with young people.
"It's not all youth work organisations and we have training agencies and specialist organisations all round our grouping. This has been going on and building up to this for a while, and we have done a couple of different runs consulting with young people and what we call gathering their voice.
"The most recent one was a consultation around drugs and alcohol. It was called 'What's the craic?' and we had between an online survey and a series of workshops that were facilitated by the different organisations. We had around 250 young people involved.
"The young people were asked everything from 'how do you feel about drugs?', 'what do you think about the types of drugs?', 'what do you think about think are the most common?', 'what experience have you had of alcohol and drugs?'. We asked them if it is easy to access alcohol and drugs.
"They were all very open and honest and the majority of it was anonymous. It was really just to get a picture and we will now have a series of projects running with young people and parents. We have also been doing training with staff who work with young people too."
This week is the launch of the awareness campaign, with a couple of statements coming from the voices of the young people being projected onto the banners in the Greater Shankill area.
On December 1, parents and the wider community have been asked to attend an event at the Spectrum Centre, to further delve into the issues.
Sarah Jane continued: "The first banner in the area says '60% of young people have told us that they turn to a parent if they need support around drugs an alcohol. Are you prepared?' That's our question to the parents and the whole community.
"Our second statement is '90% of young people say it is easy to access drugs and alcohol in the community.' We are asking 'are you surprised?'.
"And our final statement is '58% of young people think that Nitrous Oxide balloons are the most dangerous drug'. This can be a divisive topic and we don't want this to be negative. We want to support the community and all banners have a QR code and that has more information there.
"It'll explain that we are going to have a community conference on December 1. That is an opportunity to have a conversation with parents and the wider community about the whole issue around drugs and alcohol and how we can support each other and the young people that live here, to be able to handle these issues."
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