Thanks to Care for the Family's How to Drug Proof Your Kids (DPYK) programme, concerned parents across the UK are arming themselves with the facts and skills they need to help their children make the best lifestyle choices when it comes to drugs and alcohol.

As the nation becomes increasingly concerned over the high consumption of primarily alcohol, but also drugs and cigarettes, among young people, it is more important than ever that parents know how to engage with their children on these issues.

Professor Moira Plant, Professor of Alcohol Studies at Bristol University, warned, "There are now young women in their late teens and early 20s developing liver damage that in the past was not being seen until the age of 60 or 70."

How to Drug Proof Your Kids aims to reverse precisely this kind of worrying development.

"With it's focus on prevention, DPYK helps parents feel more confident, skilled and better equipped to help their children make good lifestyle choices in this area," said Paula Pridham, training manager for DPYK, in the autumn edition of Care for the Family's magazine Family.

According to Pridham, more than 3,000 parents have taken part in the programme and hundreds of people have been trained throughout the UK to deliver the course in their local communities since DPYK's launch in the Scottish Parliament and the House of Lords in 2003.

And now the DPYK programme is really starting to bear fruit.

One parent on the programme testified: "I fell more confident about recognising a problem before it happens, and more aware of developing a sense of worth and confidence in my children."

Scotland has seen the programme take off more quickly than anywhere else, as Pridham said the awareness of need was much greater there.

"They seem much more attuned to prevention," she said.

And thanks to the Stagecoach bus company, the programme in Manchester was able to employ a part-time coordinator, while local groups have been given grants to get DPYK courses up and running.

Future plans to expand the programme include the provision of more support to presenters. Day conferences will also be launched soon to provide a networking opportunity and a skills update for those who have already been trained.

"The good news is that most young people are not doing illegal drugs - but we cant be complacent, and the misuse of alcohol by our young people is very worrying.

"And one life and family being destroyed drug misuse is one too many for me," said Pridham.

The course has been developed with the support of Hope UK which has provided DPYK with the drugs expertise as well as local volunteers to help DPYK presenter when they need it.

Earlier in the month, Hope UK's director, George Ruston, completed a 100-mile cycle from Greenwich to Dover to raise money for the next Thirst for Life campaign in 2007.

The 2006 campaign was held in the Lent period and challenged individuals to express their concern about binge drinking as well as reflect on their own attitudes to drinking by going teetotal for 40 days.

He said earlier in the month: "Thirst for Life 2006 was great" George says "but we want to see more young people thinking about their drinking".

"Something has to be done. It's not acceptable that as many as 1.3million children in England are suffering because of their parents' drinking, - or that we are seeing a rise in drink-related illness."