Life Education Centres

Helping children make healthy choices

One of the priorities of the Safer Surrey Heath Partnership is to reduce the number of drug offences recorded in the borough. For the past six years (to April 2008), the Partnership has contributed funds towards the Life Education Centres' (LEC) Life Bus initiative.

The LEC Life Bus initiative targets primary schools and educates primary school age children about substance misuse and how to make healthy life choices. Between April 2007 and April 2008, LEC carried out 30.5 workshops in 10 schools in Surrey Heath. Some 2,700 pupils attended and four new schools were introduced to the initiative.

All aboard the Life Bus

Life Education Centres (LECs) is a unique federation of charities, providing inspirational programmes as a community response to drug problems. Established in the UK in 1987, LECs is now the leading charity provider of health education in primary schools. Its mission is to help children make healthy choices about their well-being by encouraging positive attitudes to health, providing information about how they function as human beings and how they can stay healthy.

One of the LECs' objectives is to help children combat peer pressure, which is often a major factor in the adoption of anti-social behaviour and misuse of drugs, alcohol and tobacco. Its highly trained educators work in specially designed mobile classrooms - the Life Bus - which provide a stimulating and exciting learning environment.

Educators work with children from the age of three upwards, when their knowledge and belief systems have already started forming. Programmes are tailored to the age range of the group so, for example, a classroom of three and four-year-olds will learn about how their body works and what it needs to stay healthy, whereas a classroom of 10 to 11-year-olds will explore the effects of drugs on the organs and issues of peer influence.

The Life Bus started touring Surrey Heath schools in 2002. Each year it visits around 16 primary schools, educating some 4,000 children about drug and substance misuse and healthy lifestyle choices.

Jayne Yung of Life Education Centres said: "An important objective of our programme is to help young children deal with peer pressure. This is often considered to be a major factor in the adoption of anti-social behaviour and misuse of drugs, alcohol and tobacco. We teach them the types of skills that would enable them to walk away with confidence from influences or pressures they may face from others to experiment with harmful substances."

"The Life Education Bus is a fantastic, motivational resource enabling all our seven to 11-year-olds to practise decision-making, which supports the development of their life skills," Dianne Pickford, Headteacher, Hammond School, Lightwater

To find out more about the Life Education Centres' Life Bus initiative, contact Jayne Yung at LEC on 01252 877230 - or visit Life Education Centres Opens in a new window.