We’re delighted to announce that we’ve been awarded a generous Movement for Good grant from the Benefact Group which will fund our project, “Wider, stronger, deeper”. This combines our two priority strategic plans: to expand and deepen the reach and impact of our direct educational delivery, and to develop our capacity to influence change and improve practice nationally.
Building on our highly successful pilot in Scotland we’ll be able to use this funding to establish a base with our first posts there: the project will part-fund the salary, training and support of the new ‘DSMF Drug Education Coordinator’ and sessional Drug Educator from which we can reach even further across the country.
Alongside this, our newly-launched Drug Education Forum (DEF) has made an impressive start. The DEF aims to uphold evidence-based standards, share best practice and provide a voice for the sector nationally. This funding will enable the DEF to expand its scope, influence and impact, and establish a self-sustaining model, setting it up independently of DSMF in order to boost the Forum’s ability to make a difference.
DSM Foundation Director and Founder Fiona Spargo-Mabbs OBE said, “We’re over the moon to have received such a generous Movement for Good grant this year, which will enable us to take drug education forward significantly and nationally. Our grant will enable us to build on the rapid progress we’ve already made in Scotland, where drug deaths are by far the highest in Europe. The impact of our programme, evidenced through the evaluation of last year’s pilot, has opened doors we can now walk confidently though, and establish our Scottish base and extend our reach across the country. Our grant will also allow us to take great strides towards achieving our ambition to ‘fix drug education’, through funding the recently launched national Drug Education Forum. This will mean we can get this flying from its very positive start, and reach more providers, practitioners and policy makers across the UK so we can together to make drug education better for all young people, which will ultimately save young lives.”
For more information about the MFG Larger Grant awards have a look on their website here https://movementforgood.com/largergrants
