The project includes the development of the services of the City youth centres, by enhancing more cooperation with youth NGOs. Moreover, the project includes training session with and for young people, by which they will develop their social and civic skills.

Smokers quitters

There is a gap in our health services when you think of young smokers. Being less than 18 years of age they are not allowed to buy any replacement for cigarettes. School or health services don’t offer these young smokers any other help but talking or most of the time; detention. The European Social Charter and the Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life both clearly demand that local authorities organize educational and counseling facilities for people facing trouble with tobacco, alcohol etc and this is where we saw a chance to use our expertise and status as youth workers.

Our work around this project started in October 2013 when we first met with the local school. We had had some education earlier on how to lead peer support groups for young people who smoke but are interested in quitting. Our plan was to gather one or two groups of 4-10 young people aged 13-17 who want to receive help when trying to quit smoking.

The school was a major partner and supported the project and the young people by making it possible to participate even if the meetings were during school hours. For some participants this allowance made it possible to participate as for some others it was a good motivator.
We advertised the new group during October and November at the youth center and at the school. We put up posters. We talked. We sent an information letter to parents (this could not have happened without the school being so willing for cooperation). We talked more. During open evenings at the youth center we might subtly challenge young people coming in from having a smoke to a conversation about how they felt about it and if they had noticed our posters and considered joining the group (yes, you can combine subtle and challenge!). We gave a presentation at the school for the students who were interested.

As a result for all this promotion we finally had 11 in the group and we started the meetings at the end of November. The meetings included team building activities, information about smoking, test to measure carbon monoxide in your breath, lots of self observation (for example how smoking makes you feel, what are the moments when you crave a cigarette and what could motivate quitting or help you win difficulties). It also included examples of healthy diet and the meaning of exercise.
After a few meetings we did a radical decision and dropped half of the participants out of the group. For us it seemed their motivation to participate was not so much quitting smoking but just skipping school. They didn’t seem committed with participating and had skipped some of the meetings. As the group was based as much on sharing information and self observation as it was based on building trust among the group members we as the leaders felt that some people participating only when they wanted to was jeopardizing the whole group.

This is why we ended up with splitting the group. We continued with the rest 5 who showed commitment. Of the 5 young people who continued 1 had to leave the group after changing to another school, so 4 members “graduated” from this pilot group. Three of them actually managed to quit smoking and one has significantly reduced her amount of smoking.
In the spring of 2014 we launched a second group due to some young people strongly asking for it. The second group started with 4 young people and will be active until the end of May.

In the beginning we had the idea this would be something we will first experiment with the pilot group and then continue with whatever experiences we gain. The school has been happy with the results and has shown interest to support this method of working in the future. We have started to consider possibilities to train some young people to act as peer leaders for future groups. There are plans within the youth office to experiment an online support group next autumn and our youth center will have another group in the autumn as well.