The Leading Provider of Prevention Education in the UK

2025 marks our 30th year of developing and delivering prevention education programmes. Our programmes help young people manage risk by making informed, constructive and assertive decisions, reducing the impact of risky behaviours. Our SKILL Decision-Making Model is at the centre of our approach, helping young people navigate risky situations using a scenario-based approach in the safety of their classroom.

A Brief History of Life Skills Education Charity

‘I think it will help us either now or in the future because if we’ve got, like, problems at home or anything, we know what to do and what situations you could get in. And because we’re going into secondary school soon, and in secondary [school], we’ll come across also situations there, and I think it will help us by learning what to do and what not to do in certain stressful situations’.

Year 6 pupil reflecting on their universal DARE25 social skills curriculum.

We are Life Skills Education Charity. We help young people manage risk and make informed decisions.

Originally brought to Mansfield in 1995 under license from DARE America, over 10 versions of our current Life Skills Primary programme have been delivered to over 450,000 young people throughout the UK. We believe that all young people deserve the right to lead safe and healthy lives and achieve their potential. We do this by providing evidence-based, professional resources designed using Social Learning Theory, meaning all of our scenarios are real-life situations taken from young people, to help your young people.

Our whole school approach to help young people manage risk encompasses 6 programmes across Primary School Key Stages 1 and 2 and are delivered in the context of staying safe around substance misuse (legal and illegal, including tobacco and vapes), online harms, hate and knife crime.

2 Independent Evaluations Show our Programmes Help Young People Manage Risk

2018 saw the publication of the first independent, randomised control sampled evaluation of a UK-based Life/Social Skills programme, a combined effort by Nottingham and Nottingham Trent Universities involving 60 schools and over 1500 young people. It showed that the work that we do has a statistically proven positive impact on our learning outcomes (knowledge around substance misuse, communication, getting help from others and making safe and responsible choices). In 2022, the Youth Endowment Fund published its research showing that children who received DARE25 (now Life Skills Primary) reported lower levels of behavioural or emotional difficulty than their counterparts who didn’t. A more recent report showing how schools can help reduce children’s involvement in violence mentions our primary programme in recommendation 3: Develop children’s social and emotional skills.

Our Board of Trustees

Chris Cooke

Chair of Trustees

Chris is a creative problem solver, coach, mentor and Customer Experience specialist. He currently works at Amazon Web Services helping Public Sector organisations to deliver improved service experiences for their customers using the latest thinking and technologies.

Matthew Phillips

Trustee

Matthew Phillips is the Director of Education for a large group of all-through schools that operates in the UK and internationally. Alongside his undergraduate qualifications in Neuroscience and Master’s Level qualification in Special Educational Needs, Matt brings almost 20 years of teaching and educational leadership experience to the board.

Leslie Ayoola

Trustee

Leslie grew up in Nottingham City and is a serving councillor for Mapperley ward. He has a Masters Degree in Youth & Community Development and a BA in Business. He has spent over 25 years working across the private, public and voluntary sectors and has established a number of SME’s and Social Enterprises.

Liz McIntyre

Trustee

A visionary strategist and a person-centred leader, I value the power of people and believe that this is the way to get things done. I have extensive experience as a charity leader with a specialism in delivering education, significant exposure to managing organisational budgets and financial management through covid-19, board level scrutiny, volunteer management, collaborative working and on the ground service delivery.

Subhash Desai

Trustee

Subhash Desai is a Risk Management Executive with over 25 years experience in leading and managing Credit Risk in Payments, Retail banks and Consumer finance businesses globally. He has held senior Risk Management positions in large institutions such as American Express, Citigroup and Barclays as well as smaller fintechs.

Thomas Wheatley

Trustee

Tom Wheatley is a prison Governor with over twenty-five years of senior leadership experience in both public and private sector organisations. He is married with two grown-up children, both of whom have participated in Life Skills Education programmes whilst at school. Tom is also a Trustee of Unlock, a national charity that provides support & advocacy for people with criminal records to enable them to move on positively in their lives.

Reg Cox

Trustee

Reg brings experience of how to deliver safe and easy to use digital experiences to consumers working with may high technology companies such as Vodafone and Ericsson. Reg is a newly qualified Yoga teacher providing Free yoga classes to anyone over zoom and in person in his home town.

Our Youth Advisory Board (YAB)

The YAB has been set up to:

Explore and investigate issues affecting young people
Help evaluate the impact of our work
Carry out research projects and focus group work
Report to the board of trustees on their findings
Help us implement what they discover

The YAB’s mission is to help us understand the issues affecting young people and their communities and to amplify the perspectives of young people and the risks they face.

The inaugural YAB introduction meeting took place virtually on 17th July 2024. During this session, members shared their views on issues they felt were most prominent amongst their peer groups and Chloe Castledine, as Chair, shared her personal story of her losing her brother to a knife crime incident.

Chloe

Chair

Georgina

Board Member

Joshua

Board Member

Eli

Board Member

Raymond

Board Member

Eryk

Board Member

Mani

Board Member

Charley

Board Member

Senior Management Team

Linda Ellis

CEO

Stuart Longcroft

Finance Director

a woman smiling and posing for the camera

Michael Donoghue

Training & Development Manager

How are Life Skills programmes Delivered?

We offer several courses that each have different methods of delivery. Needless to say, our DAaRT Officers are selected because of their unique experiences in previous roles that give them a direct link and passion to the subjects that we deliver.

Every DAaRT Officer goes through an intensive 8 day training course that culminates in delivering a lesson in a classroom. Once qualified all DAaRT Officers are quality assured each term to ensure that they are delivering to the strict standards that we set out.

Our programmes use a blend of workbooks, presentations, videos, role play and Q&A to ensure that they keep young people interested and engaged.