Substance Use in Schools Working Group minutes: 29 October 2025

Attendees and apologies

• Health and Wellbeing Unit, Scottish Government (Chair)
• Association of Directors of Education Scotland (ADES)
• Education Scotland (ES)
• Tobacco, Nicotine and Gambling Team, Scottish Government
• Drugs Policy Team, Scottish Government
• Supporting Maternal and Child Wellbeing Team

Apologies

• National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT)
• Education Institute for Scotland (EIS)
• COSLA

Items and actions

Welcome, introduction and apologies

The chair welcomed attendees and noted apologies.

Minutes and actions from previous meetings

The chair asked for comments on the minutes from the previous meeting, and the group agreed they were happy with them.

Action:

SG to sign off and publish the minutes from the previous meeting.

Draft terms of reference

The chair updated the group on the draft Terms of Reference highlighting the additional bullet point emphasising the role that SAGRABIS will play in the implementation of the guidance.

The group were content with this overall but suggested SG may want to review the wording around monitoring effectiveness.

Action:

SG to review and update wording of Terms of reference based on feedback from the group.

Draft guidance

SG welcomed a general discussion and feedback on the Draft Guidance. Group members were advised that after the meeting there would be an opportunity to for members to send comments via email. Comments from members included:

• overall the different sections are good and the appendices are helpful, and it was suggested that a contents section might be useful
• the Standards of support for children and young people using drugs and alcohol outlines support and services available and will be published before the end of the year. It was suggested it would be helpful to include a bullet point on this in the policy development section

• it was questioned whether it would helpful and relevant to teachers to mention the preventative angle of population health work and education of young people in line with this, with the suggestion of putting this in the appendix
• it was mentioned that it should be made clear that the guidance was intended to support local authorities with it’s own responsibilities
• it was suggested that the guidance should use stronger language which makes it clear that smoking and vaping is not the social norm in schools and refer to the illegality of substance use in this environment in the context section
• there was discussion on whether the responses and support section was for all substance use and if the policy development section needed to be revised to include vaping, and it was agreed it would be helpful to run this past school based reps

• it was suggested and agreed that the policy development section should include responses and support

• it was noted that substance use creates a risk factor for violence and anti social behaviour and should be referenced within the guidance
• it was agreed that a line should be included in Appendix 3 to make it clear that there are wider services available for referral

Actions:

• SG to review meetings of the working group to ensure there are no clashes with other SG meetings
• SG to update Draft Guidance with suggested amendments and share with members by 3rd November
• group members to send any further comments on the guidance by COP Monday 10th November

Any other business

• the Drugs Policy Team are producing the next iteration of the Drugs and Alcohol Strategy which is due to be published next March and will keep the group updated on this
• group members discussed their involvement with Planet Youth, a wide project focussed on reducing substance use. It is an Icelandic model which has been piloted in six areas in Scotland which uses primary prevention upstream approaches, with Angus in particular being highlighted as having done particularly good work on vaping

Action:

Group members to send over information they have on Planet Youth and their involvement with it to SG.

The chair noted the next meeting of the group will take place on Tuesday 25th Nov from 10:00-11:30am.

The chair thanked members for their contribution and closed the meeting.