The use of psychoactive substances among children and young people is one of today’s challenges. In order to solve this problem by acting in a coordinated manner, this academic year Vilnius city municipality, in cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania, implemented a pilot model for the prevention of drug use and distribution by minors in schools. The project was implemented in three schools of the capital – Antakalnis, Vasilijaus Kačialovos and Vilnius Jesuit high schools.

“Initiating this project, we aimed to increase the safety of students in educational institutions and their entrances, to include in the project all persons participating in the student’s life and, most importantly, to respond to the needs of minors. The problem of psychoactive substance use among young people is not only in Vilnius, so we paid a lot of attention to the sharing of good practices between municipalities,” said Agneta Ladek, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania.

In implementing the project, the Vilnius City Municipality relied on the international primary prevention model Planet Youth, based on scientific and practical evidence, which was implemented in the capital in 2020. One of the key aspects of the model is a community-based approach that fosters positive relationships between children and their families, peers, educators and other adults.

“Building a strong community—of children, parents, or teachers—is the healthiest and wisest way to promote children’s well-being and help them grow into mature individuals who make healthy choices.” It has been scientifically proven that children and teenagers who are surrounded by a positive environment, who have good relations with teachers and parents, use or consider using legal and illegal psychoactive substances much less often,” said Simona Bieliūnė, the vice-mayor of the city of Vilnius.

It is planned that the activities tested during the project will continue to be implemented in other schools of the capital. This will contribute to the consistent implementation of prevention of the use and distribution of psychoactive substances and will help to form healthy lifestyle habits.

Implementation of projects to strengthen school communities

The pilot model project was implemented in three schools of the capital – Antakalnis, Vasilijaus Kačialovos and Vilnius Jesuit high schools. Realizing the extent of the problem of the use and distribution of psychoactive substances among schoolchildren, the heads of educational institutions do not shy away from talking about it publicly and looking for solutions.

“Every year, students from about 30 different educational institutions come to the first classes of the high school, so it is natural that attitudes and attitudes differ. With the start of the new academic year, we face great challenges in order to familiarize students and their parents with the rules in force at our school, and their observance,” said Anželika Keršinskienė, director of Vilnius Antakalnis Gymnasium.

When planning the preventive measures for the implementation of the project, we were guided by the data of each school’s “Planet Youth” study on the extent of psychoactive substance use, children’s psychological resilience, trends in relations with parents, peers, teachers and other factors related to the use of psychoactive substances – common goals are achieved by adapting to unique school situations. After the initiation of the project, data-based individual prevention plans were created and the conditions for their implementation were created, as well as preventive activity planning, financing and implementation practices suitable for the entire municipality were tested.

All the schools that participated in the project note that the project allowed the school communities – administration, teachers, students and their parents – to focus, helped to become more active and strengthen mutual relations.

“During the project, the funds allocated by the municipality allowed our school to expand and renovate the student’s leisure spaces, install smoke detectors, partially covered the costs of fencing the school’s territory. We are happy that the students willingly got involved in the activities, initiated and created social advertisements themselves, but our most important achievement is that our school community started to speak “one language”, said Roza Dimentova, director of Vilnius V. Kačialovos Gymnasium.

“As part of the project, we established 6 student clubs according to their interests on the initiative of the students. Parents and teachers were involved in the activities. Such clubs, such as astronomy, politics or games, bring all participants together and encourage increased student engagement in extracurricular activities. We plan to continue these activities and expand them next year as well,” said Vilnius Jesuit High School director S. Edita Šicaite.

In the pilot model discussion – insights from the professionals

During the implementation of the pilot model for the prevention of underage drug use and distribution in schools, the Vilnius Public Health Office, police representatives, as well as experts from the Icelandic “Planet Youth” model joined the project activities together with the Vilnius City Municipality.

In the discussion of the pilot model, representatives of the municipality for the first time presented footage of the network of free services for the use of psychoactive substances in the city of Vilnius, which will be distributed to doctors and teachers. An informational publication has been created so far, which can be accessed at the address paslaugosjaunimui.lt.

The coordinator of the Vilnius Public Health Office presented the project activities implemented in pilot schools and the importance of student research results in planning targeted prevention measures at different levels of the community.

In the discussion of the pilot model, a tool for assessing the security of school infrastructure was also presented, as well as additional measures for the prevention of the use and distribution of psychoactive substances.

Source: https://madeinvilnius.lt/en/news/city/pilot-model-of-prevention-of-drug-use-and-distribution-by-minors-in-schools-was-implemented-in-Vilnius