Transcript Describe + Evaluate FRANK Campaign

Overall you MOP task was good. You clearly researched the
topic and produced a good piece of work.
There were however very few of you that used ALL the info I
provided!
Description
• FRANK is a national drug education service jointly
set up in 2003 by the Department of Health and
the Home Office of the British government. It is
intended to decrease the use of both legal and
illegal drugs by providing "targeted" and
"accurate information on drugs and alcohol",
particularly to school pupils. It is advertised and
promoted through television, radio and the
internet. The service is confidential, free and
operated by fully trained advisers.
Strengths
• Has different ways of explaining the effects of
drugs effectively e.g. Videos/interactive parts of
the website and also people’s own stories.
• Provides information on different types of
treatment rather than purely explaining the
effects of drugs.
• As it is targeted at young people, they may be
less likely to take drugs after seeing the website
(as many schools show the students the site in
lessons).
Strengths additional
• Talk to Frank is based on the Yale Model of Persuasion
which has experimental support for the effectiveness of presenting
both sides of the argument (see blog for more info)
• They are preventative rather than curative so stops issues before
they cause health/lifestyle/family issues
• Quantitative measures of health related behaviour (death rate,
consumption, helpline activity) can be statistically verified
• Can be costly but cheap in comparison to curative strategies
• The Home Office believes its Talk to Frank campaign works. It says
67% of young people in a survey said they would turn to Frank if
they needed drugs advice. 225,892 calls were made to the Frank
helpline and 3,341,777 visits to the website in 2011/12.
Psychological research supports the idea that media campaigns like
those used by Frank can change behaviour and be effective. For
example…
Limitations
•
The campaign has been accused of giving false and misleading information about
drugs. One example was in 2007 when the site had to remove an article entitled
"Cannabis Explained" after a number of groups (some of which agree with
the decriminalisation of cannabis use) pointed out errors in the information
presented. The Transform Drug Policy Foundation criticised FRANK's campaign
on cocaine on the basis that the harms it showed are a result of legal prohibition
rather than the drug itself.
•
The Talk to Frank campaigned has come under a great deal of criticism. For
example, the Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith criticised FRANK and drug
education in February 2010, arguing that "Drugs education programmes, such as
Talk to Frank, have failed on prevention and intervention, instead progressively
focusing on harm reduction and risk minimisation, which can be counterproductive." The Centre for Social Justice, a think tank set up by Iain Duncan
Smith, further argued that FRANK "has proved ineffectual and even damaging, to
the point of giving information as to the ‘cost’ and immediate physical effects of
drugs more prominently than driving home the danger.”
In other words Iain Duncan Smith is arguing that the Frank campaign doesn’t work as
it is simply not scary enough!
•
Targeted at young people specifically, therefore other age groups would feel
excluded from the campaign.
Weaknesses additional
• Health programmes often go hand in hand with a change in public
opinion, which may account for reduction in unhealthiness rather
than programme itself
• Health campaigns only work if people do not have barriers to
health related behaviour and can access help
• Difficult to measure effectiveness as many factors may cause
increase in health
Evaluative Passage
• I believe that Talk To Frank (and other campaigns encouraging people not
to use recreational drugs) are very essential in trying to prevent the
amount of drug use. However, I do think Talk To Frank is specifically
targeted at young people, meaning that other age groups may feel
excluded from being able to participate with the campaign. There is also
some evidence of giving false evidence, which of course needs to be
altered. I think that for further action these types of campaigns are the
way forward, however I believe they can be improved. One example would
be emphasising more on people giving their own stories, so that people
can relate to it more than just seeing cold facts about what will happen to
their body if they take the drugs. Also I think that the campaign should
appeal to older drug users/those thinking about taking drugs as well,
rather than just teenagers, perhaps by not having such an emphasis on
interactivity on the internet. But also I think that the success of these
types of campaigns would be further improved if they were made
compulsory to look at in schools.