Dear all,
With recent media coverage highlighting the rise in the use of ketamine and nitrous oxide -“laughing gas”, among young people, and the very real harms associated with both, Cycle Against Suicide is delighted to work once again with Prof. Bobby Smyth from Trinity College Dublin to deliver two important educational webinars for students and parents, focusing on how alcohol and drugs affect the developing brain.
Adolescence is a critical period of brain development. The areas responsible for decision making, impulse control, emotional regulation, and risk assessment are still maturing. Alcohol and drug use can interfere with this development, impacting memory, mood, motivation, and in some cases increasing vulnerability to longer term mental health difficulties. Evidence based education is therefore essential in helping young people and the adults who support them to make informed choices.
Students/Schools:
“Your Brain, Your Choices: Understanding How Substances Affect the Teen Brain”
This webinar empowers teenagers with clear, relatable insights into how their brains are still developing and why this makes them more sensitive to risk, reward, and peer influence. The session explains, in simple and engaging terms, how substances such as marijuana, nicotine, alcohol, vaping stimulants, and opioids can interfere with memory, mood, motivation, learning, and decision making during this critical stage. It also explores why teens may feel pressure or curiosity to normalise these experiences, and provides practical strategies for handling peer influence, supporting friends, managing stress in healthier ways, and making informed choices that protect their goals, their mental health and their future.
By working directly with schools, we aim to ensure that students receive clear, age-appropriate, science-based education that supports healthy development and wellbeing.
This webinar is available to schools/teachers and can be accessed within our secondary schools’ programme HEADSTRONG at: https://cas-elearning.com/2026/02/23/your-brain-your-choices-how-substances-affect-the-teen-brain/
For parents who are home schooling and wish access to this webinar as a lesson, please contact us directly.
Parents
“The Developing Brain & Drug Use: What Every Parent Needs to Know”
This webinar provides science-based education alongside practical communication strategies to help parents understand risk, prevention, and the importance of strengthening the parent–teen relationship. It explains how the teenage brain is still developing well into their twenties, with the reward system developing earlier , making adolescents more vulnerable to risk taking and addiction.
Parents are guided on recognising warning signs, having constructive conversations, knowing when to seek professional support, and implementing practical prevention strategies such as setting boundaries, monitoring appropriately, modelling healthy coping behaviours, and building trust.
Takeaway resources, including conversation guides and checklists, reinforce the learning and support ongoing dialogue at home. The goal is to empower parents with knowledge and confidence, recognising that informed, engaged parenting is one of the strongest protective factors in prevention.
This webinar is available to parents at: https://cas-elearning.com/courses/your-brain-your-choices-how-substances-affect-the-teen-brain/
Our continued collaboration with Prof. Bobby Smyth ensures that the information shared is grounded in research, clinically informed, and focuses on prevention. Education remains one of the most powerful tools we have to protect young people and support them in making choices that safeguard their developing brains, their mental health and their futures.
Kind regards,
Caroline Lafferty
Chief Executive Officer
Cycle Against Suicide
Website: www.cycleagainstsuicide.com
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