The Scotch Whisky Action Fund (SWAF) has announced the list of nine projects that it will be supporting over the coming year as part of the industry’s ongoing commitment to promoting responsible consumption and tackle harmful drinking.  Five projects have been awarded funding for the first time; four projects are receiving their second or third year of funding to support ongoing work.

The Scotch Whisky Action Fund was launched in 2013 and is administered by Foundation Scotland. Funding is given to projects taking an innovative approach to addressing the issues around alcohol misuse within a community or section of society. To date the fund has provided £1million of support to over 80 projects throughout Scotland. The SWAF also holds an annual learning event, bringing project representatives together to network, share learnings and identify and discuss common issues.

The projects, which range in location from Inverness to Galashiels, are committed to reducing alcohol harm by improving awareness and exploring key issues through activity sessions and workshops for youth workers and young people in schools, youth clubs and sports clubs. Some of the selected projects also provide counselling and support for families who have been impacted by the misuse of alcohol by a family member.

Dame Joan Stringer, who chaired the awards panel, said “Tackling harmful alcohol consumption is a key issue for Scotland.  These projects are undertaking important work, and we look forward to supporting them over the coming year.”

Mark Kent, Chief Executive of the Scotch Whisky Association said: “The Scotch Whisky industry is committed to tackling alcohol misuse and raising awareness of the harm that it can do. The breadth of support provided by the projects chosen by the Scotch Whisky Action Fund is vital and inspiring, and we look forward to seeing their progress and learning more from their results next year.”

A total of £115,885 has been awarded by the Fund in 2022. More information on the Scotch Whisky Action Fund can be found here.

The projects awarded funding for the first time are:

Home Start Garioch – Family Counselling Project (Inverurie): £8,000
Home Start Garioch provides friendly, informal and confidential support to those in Garioch and Formartine across Aberdeenshire bringing up young families. This project will provide counselling to families whose lives and mental health have been impacted by a family member’s alcohol dependency. With this funding, they will organise 200 hours’ worth of counselling, which equates to approximately 25-33 individuals receiving 6-8 counselling sessions each. The sessions will take place at the project’s office in Inverurie.

Parkhead Youth Project – Choices for Change (Glasgow): £11,928
Parkhead Youth Project supports children and young people aged 8-24yrs residing in Parkhead and surrounding communities. This project will provide a diversionary and education programme for young people aged 12-18, promoting healthier choices and increase physical health and well-being. They plan to utilise a programme of bi-weekly workshops and monthly activity sessions to explore alcohol and substance abuse, as well as other issues that can be the root cause of this behaviour, helping young people to feel more confident to make informed choices about their lifestyles. The project estimates that around 25 young people will directly benefit from this project.

LAYC – Alcohol Awareness for Youth Workers (Edinburgh and Lothians): £13,525
LAYC is a charity supporting community-based youth and children’s work in Edinburgh and the Lothians. Funding will allow the organisation to engage youth and children’s workers in a programme to increase their skills, knowledge, and confidence to provide a range of alcohol awareness activities, information, and support. LAYC will provide six similarly themed alcohol awareness workshops, with each focusing on the dangers of alcohol use and the impact it can have on young people. Each workshop will have 15 participant places available, meaning up to 90 individuals can attend across the whole programme.

Glasgow Girls FC – Tackled (Glasgow): £19,700
Glasgow Girls FC run football coaching schemes for girls in the East End of Glasgow. The project will develop and deliver a peer-led alcohol education and awareness mentoring programme to young people aged 11-16 in the communities of the Shettleston ward of Glasgow city and adjacent communities of Budhill, Springboig and Greenfield. The aim is to improve young people’s awareness, knowledge and understanding of the potential dangers and implications of the misuse of alcohol and to engage them in the range of diversionary activities offered by the applicants, so supporting their inclusion, health, and well-being by steering them away from risk taking, anti-social behaviour and criminal activity. The project estimates that 1,000 young people could potentially benefit over the course of the year.

Eildon West Youth Hub – TD1 Streetwork (Galashiels): £7,300
Eildon West Youth Hub is supports and works with young people aged 11-25 in Galashiels. This funding will help deliver twice-weekly, street-based outreach sessions with young people at risk, targeting those at risk of alcohol-related harm and subsequent violence, anti-social, criminal, and potential drug behaviours. Two experienced staff will offer positive alternative interventions around local sports, outdoor activities, access to TD1 youth space, group work and group planned activities and will enable young people to reflect and understand through an ‘Alcohol Brief Intervention’ model of practice on the impact and effect of their risk-taking. By building positive relationships, informing, educating, and providing alternative activities, this aims to encourage positive change in the future behaviours. A total of 85 young people annually will benefit.

The projects receiving continuity funding are:

Absafe – Pro-social behaviour & Alcohol Awareness (Aberdeen): £15,381, third year of funding
Absafe is a safety education charity based in Aberdeen. Their project will tackle the portrayal of alcohol in the media by talking with young people about TV shows and films and discussing how alcohol is portrayed in them, as well as exploring and giving them strategies with ways they might handle peer pressure and other difficult situations which involve drinking. Absafe will deliver interactive sessions from their facility The Safe, allowing young people to explore risk in a safe environment. Absafe estimates that 2,500 young people will benefit from the project.

Addictions Counselling Inverness – Family Counselling (Inverness): £13,125, third year of fundingAddictions Counselling Inverness provides addiction recovery support to those impacted by addiction in Inverness. The funding will continue to deliver a free counselling service to individuals who are affected by the alcohol use of a close family member. They will offer counselling sessions to 18 individuals (12 sessions) totalling 216 counselling sessions between July 2022 and March 2023. The counselling sessions will continue to take place at ACI premises in Inverness (5 Counselling Rooms) for those who live in Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey and Ross-shire/Sutherland and those who are unable to travel to Inverness will be offered appointments in a community venue in their locality or via telephone or video calls.

Barnardo’s – CHOICES (Scotland-wide): £6,625, second year of fundingBarnardo’s is a charity which supports children who have been abused, across the UK. The funding will be used to continue their alcohol misuse programme known as CHOICES, extending it to be delivered to all remaining year 6 and 7 pupils in the ten schools currently working in partnership with Barnardo’s. The areas covered within the programme include understanding the impact of alcohol on behaviour, the risk of alcohol misuse, healthy lifestyles and peer pressure to misuse alcohol. A training element has been developed for teachers within the programme to build their skills, confidence, and resilience to enable them to identify children at risk of or affected by alcohol misuse and provide the support they need.

Fast Forward Positive Lifestyles – Own It! (Scotland-wide): £20,301, second year of funding
Fast Forward Positive Lifestyles is a youth work charity aimed at enabling young people to make informed choices about their health and wellbeing. Own It! will work with 10-12 groups of young people, aged 10-24 to deliver six hours of direct training in alcohol related harm, other risk-taking behaviours, and peer education. Initial awareness raising sessions will be followed by asking the group members to draw on their lived-experience to develop an individual storyline. Each storyline is then collated into a single script / storyboard which will form the basis of the finished Own It! resource, in which the young people involved will be able to clearly identify their contributions.