Goals: To help young people give up smoking
Funding: The adolescent smoking element of Smoke Free Cardiff has a grant of 159,813 from the Big Lottery Fund until September 2007, and 2Tuff 2Puff also receives money from the Welsh Assembly Government
With concern increasing about the health of young people, Smoke Free Cardiff, part of the National Public Health Service, is running a project to help 11- to 19-year-olds give up smoking.
2Tuff 2Puff started work in schools in January, and in youth clubs in April, but the work will be expanded to youth centres across Cardiff at a launch event on 14 October.
The under-18s club night, which will be smoke- and alcohol-free, will include the launch of the scheme's new logo, conceived by 16-year-old Perrie Biston.
Alisha Newman, youth health development worker at Cardiff Local Health Board, says the idea is to make the project seem more approachable for young people, and makes it clear the aim is to help people who want to stop smoking, not hassle people who don't want to give up.
2Tuff 2Puff runs six-week courses for young people who want to quit their habit. Four of these are running at the moment, in schools and youth clubs, and normally catering for between eight and 12 people.
"Young people are very keen to quit until they have to set a quit date," says Newman. "In week two they have to set a date when they are going to quit, and that date has to be between week two and week three.
"They tend to cut down rather than quit. They do want to give up. They know all the reasons why they should, but the actual thought of not smoking, you can see, fills them with complete dread."
Despite this, evaluations from one school-based course show that although only six per cent quit, the average number of cigarettes smoked per week fell from 78 to 40, and 89 per cent reported that they had a better understanding of the effects of smoking.
