For many years, consumption of alcohol, cigarettes and cannabis among Danish adolescents has been far too high. While young people's alcohol consumption in countries such as Norway, Sweden and Finland is well below the European average, drunkenness-oriented alcohol consumption among Danish youth is at the very top - compared to our Nordic neighbors, the same applies to smoking and cannabis. The Danish Health Authorities has therefore initiated a 10-year health promotion program called ‘Fælles om Ungelivet’, whose vision is to generate a good youth life, where drugs do not play a significant role – instead, adolescents’ everyday life should be characterized by present and guiding adults, who provide the right conditions and show the way to good social communities and inspiring youth environments.

Fælles om Ungelivet is inspired by experiences from Iceland, which have succeeded in reducing young people's alcohol consumption from being one of Europe's highest to now being one of Europe's lowest. The new approach in Fælles om Ungelivet is that the municipalities focus on conditions that promote a positive development of a good and healthy youth life rather than focusing on risk factors. The program is based on theories saying that changes in the environments in which young people live will result in less risk-seeking behavior in the long run – thus, the municipal projects focus on strengthening protective factors within primarily four key domains: Family, Friends, Leisure activities, and School.

The Danish Health Authorities defines the overall framework for Fælles om Ungelivet via a program secretariat, which is also responsible for capacity building, counseling and sparring with the five pilot municipalities. The unit of Health Promotion Research at SDCC is responsible for conducting a formative evaluation to provide knowledge about challenges, positive experiences and learning potentials in the five pilot municipalities.

Aim

SDCC has entered a collaboration with the Danish Health Authority (Sundhedsstyrelsen) to deliver a so-called formative evaluation that spans the Fælles om Ungelivet’s 4-year pilot and development period from 2020-2023. The evaluation has partly a learning purpose and partly a documentation purpose.

Overall, the formative evaluation aims to support the work of developing, testing and improving Fælles om Ungelivet on an ongoing basis as well as developing a model for respectively Monitoring and reporting; Involvement and empowering of key stakeholders as well as for Local communication efforts.

Design

For the formative evaluation, several evaluation tools are developed and continuously tested and adapted in close dialogue with pilot municipalities and the program secretariat at the Danish Health Authority.
The tools include i.e.

• activity descriptions
• a dialogue tool
• follow-up conversations with the municipal project managers.
  

By using the tools, a nuanced picture is obtained of the individual projects - this insight can identify challenges and areas that can be improved, as well as clarify the elements and approaches that are working well. Following this, it is possible for both the program secretariat and the municipality itself to secure the right capacity building and plan future process in the best possible way.

Collaborators