Vestfold College

Abstract

"Endelig Lørdag (Saturday at last). Stage play as a tool in preventing alcohol abuse" "Endelig Lørdag" (EL) is a project facilitating a combined arrangement, with a stage play performed for parents and their children at 12 to 18 years of age, followed by a dialogue conference. The conference involves teachers and professional health workers, as well as parents and pupils. The emphasis is on the relational consequences of repressing discussions about use and abuse of alcohol. We build on experiences from six Norwegian counties, following the project from planning to evaluation phase. Our main focus is in evaluating the project. By means of interviews, observation, and a survey of parents and pupils (N estimated at 240), we examine the following general question of research: What are the results of EL in stimulating parents to take part in discussions about use and abuse of alcohol? We particularly emphasise results along two lines of interest. The first interest is in the methods used to facilitate dialogue between parents, and between parents and their teenage children. We explore the stage plays adequacy in motivating dialogue, as well as the power of the techniques used at the conferences to establish constructive dialogue. The second line of interest is in the cabling of resources made possible by EL as a project. There is a substantial potential for democratic participation processes in the approach of dialogue conferences, where participants from different sectors (professional health workers, teachers, county administrators, parents, pupils) take part. The participants' various competence's can be treated as complementary, as opposed to mainstream approaches characterised by professional - client relations. An interesting side effect lies in the possibility that cross-sectional partaking in the project will enhance (organisational) learning at the community level. Our study is in its preliminary stages, and we have yet to draw any conclusions.

Keywords

Stage play; Dialogue conference; Relational approach; Alcohol abuse; Cabling of resources

Contact

Knutheim Terje

Institution

Vestfold College

Postaddress

PB 2243

City

3103 Tønsberg

Country

Norway

E-mail

Terje.Knutheim@hive.no

Phone

+47 33031277

Fax

+47 33031290