Shocking report reveals Calderdale school pupils being offered drugs from staff members

The statistic was among hundreds presented in an in-depth survey into Year 7 and Year 10 children’s health and well-being in Calderdale.

Despite the stat being something of a headline grabber, substance use among young people has been broadly in decline in recent years – but is most prevalent in children and young people who have vulnerabilities, it says.

The survey is a detailed snapshot of how they see their lives at this moment in time, asking young people questions about their gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, health, emotional health and wellbeing, and harms they might be subjected to ranging from their home life to drug use.

Reviewed recently by the council’s Children and |Young People’s Scrutiny Board, Calderdale’s electronic Health Needs Assessment (eHNA) has been running for ten years now.

Councillors were told the annual survey is widely considered to be “best practice” in its format and execution and staff compiling it are often asked to advise colleagues in other areas on both their approach and survey findings.

The 2019 report, completed by them electronically and co-ordinated by school staff, saw 4,123 secondary school students from 100 per cent of Calderdale’s schools taking part, 2,273 from Year 7 and 1,850 from Year 10.

Councillors learned the report provides “a rich and valuable insight” into the lives of children and young people in Calderdale, allowing all to better support them and keep them happy, healthy and safe going forward.

The results are shared with professionals in the council’s public health, and children and young people’s directorates and with partner agencies including Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group and health services.

Schools participating also receive an in-depth report detailing findings for their own school and comparing them to district averages, and all schools taking part are offered support in developing health and wellbeing action plans tailored to meet the needs of their students where appropriate and to access a range of associated resources and services.

The survey drills down into how their see their lives and alongside statistics like those involving drugs also reveals much about what can be seen as their everyday lives.

For example, half of them feel they are a healthy weight, though a similar figure had said they had tried to lose weight and girls were more likely than boys to think they were overweight.

Fewer than one in five eat the recommended “five a day” fruit and veg – in line with the national picture.

Less students than last year walked to school than last year’s cohort but the number is higher than 2017 and two thirds achieve the recommended daily sixty minutes of exercise on at least four days.

More than a third of those surveyed spend four or more hours on social media on a normal school day, while one in seven is spending more than seven hours doing the same thing.

The vast majority of them, 77 per cent, clean their teeth twice a day.

As they move through their teenage years more of them feel sad or anxious at least once a week – 70 per cent nationally – and the Calderdale figures show girls do not sleep as well as boys.

But 64 per cent are highly satisfied with their lives and, although 15 per cent have low life satisfaction and 21 per cent medium satisfaction, the vast majority are “thriving”, says the survey.

Exams and getting the grades they require are the chief worry for just over half of them, but locally 24 per cent of those surveyed report having self-harmed.

The report showed almost half of them feeling the area where they lived feels safe, but the survey also reveals there have been “significant increases” in secondary school students feeling that knives, drug dealing, crime and guns make the area they live in feel unsafe, said the report, and around a quarter report they are harmed in some way at home.

However few children smoke, only 16 per cent of the sample, and of those half have only ever used e-cigarettes.

Around half of the secondary students have tried alcohol but that is a significant decrease from last year.

About one in ten of those surveyed had tried cannabis, particularly at the older end of those surveyed, but most only once or twice.

But one in six students reported being offered drugs other than cannabis, and one in ten of those said they got them from school staff.

A vast majority, 84 per cent, felt safe or usually safe online, between 14 per cent (Year 7s) and 24 per cent (Year 10s) had been involved in “sexting”.

Around one in ten, increasing in number through teenage years, had had sexual intercourse with more than two thirds, 67 per cent, having used contraception.

Less than one in ten respondents had ever been encouraged to adopt extremist views, though this was only something a small minority were encouraged to do regularly.

Most ignored it, discussed it with someone they trusted, disagreed with it or reported it, but ten per cent of the one in ten said they had promoted the views to other people, said the report.

The full survey can be read online at https://www.calderdale.gov.uk/nweb/COUNCIL.minutes_pkg.view_doc?p_Type=AR&p_ID=72059