As the year comes to a close, Australia21 is proud to release our 2016-17 Annual Report. We did a lot with very little over the period, running nationally significant projects, boosting our profile and calibrating the goals that will keep us powering on through 2017-2018.

The final Australia21 Board meeting of 2017 was a rare opportunity to meet face-to-face. The time together sowed the seeds for new approaches and themes, while revealing fresh sources of energy and providing a strong foundation for the work to come in 2018.

It’s December! That means there’s a long hot summer of celebrations and music festivals ahead. Australia21 has done a lot of research into the use of alcohol and other drugs and the evidence is clear: preventing and reducing harm is far more important than punishing people for their mistakes. So here are a few tips for getting through without too much damage.

The first school to adopt ‘Smarter About Drugs: A conversation pack’ has integrated it into VCE Global Politics. Download it now and get students talking!

Australian schools have started using a ground-breaking teaching resource that changes the way drug and alcohol issues are addressed among students, giving them the tools for informed discussion and evidence-based analysis of drug policies. Smarter About Drugs: A conversation pack has been designed by Australia21, YoungA21 and the Australian Lions Drug Awareness Foundation (ALDAF) to engage young people in a way that has never been done before in Australia.

There is perhaps no greater anguish than that of a parent who has witnessed their child suffer and die. But the grief is compounded when they see others go through the same preventable trauma and loss year after year, decade after decade, while governments ignore the evidence that could save the lives of their children.

Populist agendas do not make for effective health policy: the SA Opposition should promise better drug education instead of sniffer dogs for schools, to help stop deaths and criminalisation.

A Melbourne school has signed up to pilot Australia21’s Smarter About Drugs Conversation Pack to engage its students in open and informed discussions about illicit drugs and the policies that guide Australia’s response to them. In other developments this month, the Making the Future Work project has been awarded $10,000 grant, there’s been a major shift on PTSD and we give you a sneak preview of our soon-to-be released Algal Farming report.