A Scottish charity is to work with a leading supermarket to tackle drink problems among young people.
The £50,000 initiative will see Addaction - which works with those affected by drink or drug dependency - team up with Asda in Dundee, although it is hoped the model can be extended across the country.
The charity will work with a specialist youth agency in Dundee to identify young people at risk of developing serious problems with alcohol and offer them help. The project will look at the reasons behind people's drinking and offer them what Addaction says are proven effective interventions which will help them deal with alcohol more responsibly.
However, the holistic service will also encourage them to deal with personal problems in a healthier, more positive way.
The scheme is similar to work being done by the two organisations in a £1m partnership in Barnsley, Liverpool and Cornwall.
Addaction said it was already working in Dundee and many of the adults it saw were dealing with problem drinking which began when they were teenagers.
A spokesman added: "Like many places that Addaction works, Dundee has significant problems with alcohol. The new initiative seeks to prevent this developing by delivering effective early prevention, treatment and support services."
Addaction also said the joint scheme could reduce antisocial behaviour, street drinking and alcohol-related offending.
Andrew Horne, Director of Operations for Addaction in Scotland, explained: "Asda's generous funding will allow us to tackle these issues and establish a model of working that can be rolled out across the country."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article