Seniors promotion

Using your Drug Info resources to promote awareness of alcohol and prescription drug use to older people.

Seniors festival display at Bowral Library

Many libraries are involved in health and wellbeing related events and activities during the NSW Seniors Festival. You can use your Drug Info resources to promote awareness of standard drinks and the Australian Alcohol Guidelines as well as prescription drug use during the festival and at other times of the year.

Information resources to promote

Books

Use these books from your Drug Info collections in library displays:

Healthy spirit, healthy community: a guide to drugs and alcohol within our community
A quick guide to drugs & alcohol 2nd edition
A guide to coping: support for families faced with problematic drug use

Pamphlets

The following free pamphlets are available to order or download from the Your Room website:

Alcohol: the facts
Benzodiazepines: the facts
Caffeine and energy drinks: the facts

Factsheets to download and print

Alcohol and Older People Factsheet (The Right Mix – Australian Government, Department of Veterans’ Affairs)
Alcohol and Medications Factsheet (The Right Mix – Australian Government, Department of Veterans’ Affairs)
Alcohol and Heart Disease Factsheet Factsheet (The Right Mix – Australian Government, Department of Veterans’ Affairs)

Website

Drug and alcohol information for seniors (Drug Info)
Get healthy information and coaching service (NSW Health)

Ideas for activities

Use your Know Your Standards resin kit to run a pouring activity or set up a library display.

Library display

Put your resin kit on display:

on your library counter
in the genealogy room
near the newspapers

Run a pouring activity

Select an activity from the Know Your Standards Tool Kit. Use this activity to:

give a standard drinks session to library reading groups or other group meeting
run a standard drinks demonstration at a library event
provide library clients with an opportunity to test their knowledge of standard drinks at a stall

Outreach and mobile

The Know Your Standards resin kit is portable. Use the handy carry bag to take it out to events such as:

picnic days and morning teas
health and wellbeing expos
film nights and other events

Make a mocktail

Use the Literary Mocktails resources to hold a mocktail making demonstration or class.

Drug facts

Use your Drug Info collection, including the NSW Health Drug Facts booklet collection as inspiration and resources for the following activities during the Seniors Festival:

host a trivia competition using the Drug facts trivia round questions
use the Know Your Drug Facts Activity Sheet to run a group activity
hold your own mini drug and alcohol expo with an info display of Drug Facts booklets and a Know Your Standards resin kit. Create a poster for your event or use the NSW Health Drug Facts booklets covers (print images from the Your Room website).

Drug and Alcohol issues for seniors

Alcohol is the most common drug used by older people. Older people in Australia are less likely to binge drink, but are the most likely age groups to be daily drinkers.

As people age they become more susceptible to the effects of alcohol. They will become more intoxicated and impaired at lower doses and be at greater risk of harmful physical effects and accidents, particularly falls. Harmful interactions between alcohol and multiple medications are of particular concern in the elderly.

Alcohol can interact in harmful ways with many prescribed and over-the-counter medications, and with some herbal preparations. These interactions can change the effect of the alcohol and/or the medication. These changes can take place at low levels of drinking (as low as one drink).

Medication misuse: Misuse of prescription drugs among older adults can range from sharing medications and using medications at higher dosages or for longer periods of time than prescribed, to persistent abuse and dependency issues. The two main classes of medications that present a concern for abuse are the benzodiazepine sedative-hypnotics (eg Valium) and the opioid analgesics (eg codeine and oxycodone).

Sources: Older People's Drug and Alcohol Project – NSW Health; The Right Mix - Department of Veterans’ AffairsPromoting your event or activity

Promotion and reporting

Promotional material

Promotional material items such as pens, postcards, Know Your Standards pocketcards and showbags are available to order for your event or activity.

Find out about the current range of promotional items.

Reporting

IMPORTANT! Don't forget to report your event or activity to Drug Info via our online form.

Report your seniors event or activity

Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media are effective methods of communication. You could use these channels to provide links to useful online resources in order to reinforce the messages and to support people to make informed decisions and choices about drinking and/or drug use.

Use the following hashtags on Twitter (and Instagram/Tumblr):
#nswpubliclibraries
#druginfolibsnsw

Sample tweets:

Do you know how many standard drinks are in your favourite drink? #knowyourstandards @druginfolibsnsw

Do you know how much wine (beer/scotch/tequila/champagne etc) is in a standard drink? Visit XX Library to find out
#knowyourstandards #nswpubliclibraries