The Philip Lawrence Awards reward outstanding achievements in good citizenship by young people aged 11 to 20.

In December 2006 a group of young women who had been working extremely hard, on issue associated with safe drinking were invited down to London to be presented with a Philip Lawrence Award from Sir Trevor Mcdonald.

Am a Bovvered - Safe Drinking Group Aims:

We aim to raise awareness among young people about safe drinking. We designed, produced and distributed a poster about drink spiking (launched on Tyneside in December 2005), and launched the 'Am I bovvered' cool guide to drinking alcohol safely on 8 November 2006 at an event that we organised.for 200 young women

Who we are.
19 young mothers have been involved in some way over the last 18 months, and a core group of 7 have driven the agenda forwards

When we started.
April 2005

How we started.
After friends had drinks spiked, resulting in one young mum being on life support, we decided in our Young Women's Project 'Next Steps' programme to develop a safe drinking campaign to raise awareness among young people on issues associated with drinking alcohol.

Our work.
We designed a poster for young people about the dangers of date rape and drink spiking. Through partnership working with the S.M.A.R.T. (Substance Misuse Awareness Raising and Treatment) team and with support from the Police, we distributed our posters widely in local schools, community centres, youth clubs and bars. We then produced the 'Am a bovvered' leaflet for young people to help them to keep safe and to make informed choices about drinking alcohol.

Future plans.
Our 'Cool Guide to Drinking Alcohol' was launched on 8 November 2006 to coincide with Christmas and New Year celebrations. We will continue to promote safe drinking by peer education, especially in Youth Centres, accompanied by our life size 'Am a bovvered' character, with pre-recorded safe drinking messages


"It's so important to raise awareness about the dangers of drink-spiking. Young women are very vulnerable when they go out drinking."

Donna Stanton-Clark, 17, Young Women's Project member