#NormShift
Equipping Young People to See, Question and Shift the Alcohol Norm
NormShift is a structured intervention that empowers adolescents aged 15 to 18 build the tools to question alcohol’s role in their daily environments. It supports alcohol prevention through critical reflection on social norms, media influence and the narratives the alcohol industry creates.
Movendi International coordinates the work from Sweden, together with partner organisations across four countries: Youthfully Yours SK and Flexskill in Slovakia, Better Future in Slovenia, and the Coaching Bulgaria Association in Bulgaria.
Most prevention work centres on the individual young person and the factors closest to them. NormShift takes a different starting point: it looks at the commercial drivers and cultural factors that make alcohol appear as if it was an unquestioned part of everyday life and environments, and equips young people to recognise and question those influences rather than only their own behaviour around alcohol.
The intervention was built together with adolescents from the outset. Their input, gathered through co-creation workshops and refined with expert guidance, shaped its themes, structure and design throughout.
The NormShift Guidebook
The NormShift Guidebook is the heart of the intervention. Created with young people, for young people, it speaks directly to adolescents: through personal reflections, creative exercises and challenges they can work through at their own pace, it takes them from spotting a single alcohol advert to seeing the system behind it: how the alcohol industry builds and maintains the alcohol norm, and how that norm can be questioned, changed, and replaced with more inclusive and healthier social norms.
Co created with young people and refined with experts, the NormShift Guidebook is built to be used, tested and improved in real settings. It is available in English, Swedish, Slovak, Slovenian and Bulgarian.
Training and Pilot Testing Now Complete
Partner organisations came together for a Learning, Teaching and Training Activity, where teams explored the NormShift materials in practice, exchanged knowledge and experience, and prepared for implementation at national level.
The pilot phase has now been completed. Young people and youth workers in Sweden, Slovakia, Slovenia and Bulgaria tested the Toolkit and the wider set of NormShift materials in real workshops and activities in their own communities. Their feedback has been used to finalise and adjust the Toolkit, so the version now ready reflects what actually worked on the ground.
NormShift Gallery
Funding
NormShift is co funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission.
Reference: 2024-1-SE02-KA220-YOU-000257285.
Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission.
