Description
TLC Zoom
Wednesday 23rd October 2024 @ 18:00 BST
Young People, Drugs and Decisions
Fiona Spargo-Mabbs OBE
When Fiona Spargo-Mabbs’ younger son Dan was sixteen he asked if he could go to a party that evening with friends. He never came back. The policeman who knocked at their door in the early hours said he’d been found unconscious outside an illegal rave, miles away from their South London home. It was thought he’d taken ecstasy. His family spent the next two days in intensive care, watching their bright, beautiful, big-hearted boy die from multiple organ failure.
Fiona and her husband Tim were left with a passionate commitment to do all they could to prevent any harm happening to anyone else’s child from drugs, and eight days later they had set up a drug education charity in Dan’s name, The Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation. Dan’s death brought home just how close any young person could be to a decision that has the potential to go badly wrong when drugs are involved, how hard it now is to avoid those decisions as you grow through your teens, and how few young people were getting the drug education they needed to navigate those decisions safely, just at the stage of their lives when managing risk is never harder.
Ten years later the charity is still going strong, having grown rapidly from the start, and they are working extensively with young people, families and professionals across the UK. Fiona will share the story of Dan and the DSM Foundation, and outline the current context for young people in relation to drugs, including the role social media plays to an unprecedented degree in their exposure and access to drugs. She will also explore the vital role effective, evidence-based drug education can play in preventing harm, and the challenges that still exist to making sure all young people are provided with what they need to reach adulthood safe and sound.
Fiona Spargo-Mabbs is Director and Founder of drug education charity the Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation, and an award-winning author of books for parents. With over two decades’ experience working in education as a teacher, manager and national lead in her specialism working with vulnerable families, Fiona co-founded the DSM Foundation in 2014 in response to the death of her 16-year-old son Daniel having taken ecstasy. As well as working directly with young people, parents and professionals herself, Fiona is also regularly asked to speak on various national platforms and in the media, and her TEDx talk, ‘Why drugs education is vital’, can be seen online. She is closely involved in policy work with government, police, academics and other agencies, working closely in partnership to influence change nationally. In 2023 she was awarded an OBE for services to young people.
Fiona is author of ‘I Wish I’d Known: Young People, Drugs and Decisions – a guide for parents and carers’ (Sheldon Press, 2021) and ‘Talking the Tough Stuff with Teens: making conversations work when it matters most’ (Sheldon Press, 2022).
For more information about the DSM Foundation see www.dsmfoundation.org.uk
