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Positive Choices

Matilda Centre

Positive Choices is an online portal to help Australian schools and communities access accurate, up-to-date, evidence based alcohol and other drug education resources and prevention programs.

  • Online

Pricing: Free

Origin: Developed in Australia for Australian schooling contexts

Affiliations: University of Sydney, Department of Health and Aged Care funded

Product type: Fact sheets; Online resources (e.g. videos, games, tools, readings); Activity sheets; Student activities; Professional learning; Learning modules; Class lesson plans

Contact details

Matilda Centre
ABN: 15 211 513 464

https://positivechoices.org.au/

info@positivechoices.org.au

Focus areas

  • Drug and alcohol education

Curriculum alignment

  • Health and PE

Prospective users

Audience: Whole school universal (Tier 1), Whole class universal (Tier 1), Targeted small group early intervention (Tier 2)

Communities: Diverse cultures or language groups, First Nations

Context: School or centre-based, E-schools

Main beneficiaries: Year 7, Year 8, Year 9, Year 10, Year 11, Year 12

Delivery style: Classroom teacher is trained; Student, self-directed

Aims & approach

Positive Choices provides direct access to a range of evidence-based, engaging and easy to implement alcohol and other drug (AOD) resources. The portal is free to access. Some externally developed programs listed on Positive Choices have costs associated with them.

The portal aligns with the best practice principles of effective prevention and contains over 200 resources, some of which were developed by the Positive Choices team, and the remainder developed externally then thoroughly reviewed against strict evidence criteria.

Resourses are organised by:

Implementation support

  • Implementation training webinars or modules
  • Ongoing helpdesk, email or phone support

Evidence

The mutiple-award-winning Positive Choices portal was developed to align with the best practice principles of effective prevention as demonstrated in the literature. It was launched in December 2015 as part of the Australian Government's Drug Education and Prevention Strategy and was supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care.

To ensure resources on Positive Choices are evidence-based, accurate, and relevant to the target audience, all resources that are developed externally are assessed using an adapted version of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) body of evidence matrix which assesses evidence-base, impact and utility, generalisability, applicability, and credibility of resources.

The Positive Choices team routinely reviews all content on the portal to ensure it is up-to-date and accurate. Annual scoping reviews are also conducted to identify and evaluate potential new resources for inclusion on the site. The impact of the portal is supported by independent evaluations and peer-reviewed publications. References include:

  • Cash et al. (2021) Evaluation of the National Ice Action Strategy. 360Edge.
  • Stapinski et al. (2022). Positive Choices: Evaluation of Positive Choices, a national initiative to disseminate evidence-based alcohol and other drug prevention strategies. JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting.
  • Devine et al. (2022). Positive Choices 2021 site evaluation report: Assessment of a national alcohol and other drug prevention initiative for school communities. Report prepared for the Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Branch, DoHAC.