Summary of a Blueprint for Action: Preventing substance-related harms among youth through a Comprehensive School Health approach

Overview

This resource sets out action plans and strategies at various levels of the Canadian education system to prevent substance-related harms among youth.

Who this resource is for

The primary audience for this resource is members of Canadian school communities. This includes those working within the education system, for example:

• administrators
• school board officials and other decision-makers
• teachers
• guidance counsellors
• health professionals who work in school communities
• community organizations that support youth

Along with students and their families, these groups are essential to planning, implementing and sustaining efforts to prevent substance-related harms.

The secondary audience for this resource is the broader array of Canadian school stakeholders. This includes:

• government officials and researchers working in substance use and school health
• school and public health organizations and organizations representing populations of youth experiencing inequities and their allies (for example, Indigenous and LGBTQ2+ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and two-Spirit] youth)

These stakeholders can directly or indirectly advocate for and support equitable, evidence-based initiatives to prevent substance-related harms, within both school communities and other settings.

In this resource

• Introduction
• Purpose
• Who this resource is for
• Overview of the Blueprint for Action
• How this resource was developed
• Section 1: Key messages
• Section 2: The Blueprint for Action intervention model
  • Overview of the model
  • Comprehensive School Health approach
  • Substance use prevention approaches
    • Upstream prevention approaches
    • Harm reduction approaches
    • Stigma reduction initiatives
    • Equity-oriented approaches
  • Combining the intervention approaches
  • Strengths of the Blueprint for Action model
• Section 3: Putting the Blueprint for Action into practice
  • Barriers and Enables to implementing the Blueprint model
  • Principles for Action
• Conclusion
• Appendices
  • Appendix 1. The Blueprint for Action model "in practice"
  • Appendix 2. Additional resources and research articles

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