The challenge

In 2016, Rescue, a behaviour change agency based in the US were commissioned to conduct Peer Crowd Discovery (PCD) research to inform planning of teen and young adult alcohol abuse prevention efforts in Aotearoa New Zealand. This work identified five groups of young people who carry the greatest burden from alcohol related harm. These groups are called peer crowds. If you're interested, you can watch the video presentation of the work Rescue completed here .

The organisations we worked with wanted to understand how to use the peer crowd segmentation to design interventions that will reduce alcohol related harm and to improve access to support for young people that are at risk of alcohol related harm.

The collaboratives included Counties Manukau Health , the Health Promotion Agency , CAYAD Auckland , the New Zealand Drug Foundation , Odyssey , Healthy Families Manukau, Manurewa-Papakura , CAYAD Auckland (Auckland Council), Youthline , Real and CHAMP .

What we did

This work was completed over two projects during 2017.

The first project used the first four stages of our innovative action model to identify social norm approaches and interventions to increase engagement with young people, decrease alcohol related harm, and delay initiation of drinking where possible. We worked with five co-design groups (one for each of the peer crowds) to identify, test and further develop behavioural change approaches to reducing alcohol related harm within the Peer Crowds who experience the greatest harm. We trained a group of those young people to be idea testers to further develop and test two leading approaches with their peers. These ideas were iterated further and presented in the final business case.

The second project also used the first four stages of our innovative action model to identify how we can increase engagement and support for young people living in South Auckland who are at the most risk of alcohol related harm by building the capacity of specialist and other support services to identify, understand, engage, and support at-risk peer crowds. We engaged closely with health and social care professionals, young people from the peer crowds and the research literature to get deep understanding of the challenges and then co-designed potential solutions with professionals and young people working together. Two specific initiatives were tested and developed further and then finally presented in a business case.

We created

Most of these deliverables are not yet publicly available - we hope to be able to share the insights documents on in the coming months.

P eer Crowd Co-Design: Insights on Young People and Alcohol in South Auckland

Reducing Alcohol Related Harm with Peer Crowds of Young People: a business case

Summary of Reducing Alcohol Related Harm with Peer Crowds Project

Peer Crowd Service Engagement: Insights on increasing engagement and support for young people living in South Auckland who are at risk of alcohol related harm

Peer Crowd Service Engagement: a business case

Our impact

The four initiatives developed as a part of these two projects have the potential to reduce alcohol related harm with young people in South Auckland and beyond, and increase their access to effective support.