About The Dsm Foundation
The Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation is a drug and alcohol education charity that aims to support young people to make safe choices about drugs and alcohol and reduce harm. We do this through increasing understanding of the effects and risks, and helping to develop life skills and resilience. The Foundation was set up in January 2014 by Tim and Fiona Spargo-Mabbs in response to the death of their 16-year-old son Daniel having taken ecstasy.
'Supporting young people to make safer choices about drugs'
We work with young people, families, teachers and professionals in schools, colleges and community groups. We have developed an evidence-based, multi-component drug and alcohol education programme for young people, parents and teachers, based on practice that research has demonstrated to be most effective.
- We deliver interactive drug and alcohol education workshops for students from Years 6-13, delivered by experienced drug educators.
- We provide planning and resources for evidence-based drug and alcohol education to be delivered by teachers in schools as part of Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education. Three programmes offer a spiral curriculum from years 7-18, years 9-11 and sixth forms, which is age-appropriate and builds on prior learning, and is adapted to be delivered in lessons or shorter form-time sessions.
- We deliver training to teachers prior to the PSHE programme being delivered, and drug and alcohol awareness training to teachers, school staff and other professionals working with young people.
- We deliver drug and alcohol awareness workshops to parents and carers.
- Our Youth Ambassador programme trains and supports 16 to 18-year-olds to become positive peer influences in their communities, to develop skills and to support the activities of the Foundation in a range of ways.
For more information, visit our drug education pages.
For media enquiries, please email media@dsmfoundation.org.uk
We also use drama alongside these approaches. In 2014, we commissioned award-winning playwright Mark Wheeller to write a verbatim play that tells Dan’s story. ‘I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die’ was published by Bloomsbury (Methuen Drama) in 2017, and is being studied, taught and performed in schools, colleges and youth theatres across the UK and around the world. From September 2022 the play is one of seven set texts on the Eduqas GCSE drama syllabus. The play has also been adapted to tour as a Theatre in Education production with interactive workshops. In 2020 a professional live performance film was made which is available for streaming in schools. There have been annual professional Theatre in Education tours since 2017, commissioned by the DSM Foundation, which have reached around 45,000 young people and parents to date. For more information, please click on the button below.
Registered charity no. 1158921 (CCEW) and SC052164 (OSCR)
The Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation is a company limited by guarantee Reg. No. 08863937
The Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation: charity objectives:
“Working with and for young people on substance misuse.”
The objectives of the Daniel-Spargo Mabbs Foundation:
- to provide evidence-based and innovative educational resources and programmes, support and advisory services about substance misuse for promoting healthy, informed choices for young people.
- to work directly with young people, schools, families, professionals and the community in increasing awareness about substance misuse.
- to empower young people with the knowledge, life skills and confidence they need to choose lives free of substance misuse.
- to support initiatives to educate young people about substance misuse through partnerships with them, schools, families, professionals, charities, universities and other agencies.
Daniel Spargo-Mabbs
Who was Dan and what was his story?
Tributes to Dan
We have a number of tributes for Dan within our “Dan’s Story” page – please take a moment to read these. You can also download them for future reading. Click on the “Tributes to Dan” button to the right to read more.
A tribute to our Dan
Written by Tim, Fiona and Jacob Spargo-Mabbs and issued by the Metropolitan Police press bureau on the day of his funeral, 11 February 2014
