Daniel Spargo-Mabbs

The Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation is a drug and alcohol education charity founded in January 2014 by Tim and Fiona Spargo-Mabbs in response to the death of their 16-year-old son Daniel having taken ecstasy. They wanted to do all they could to prevent any harm happening to anyone else’s child from drugs or alcohol. The charity’s aim is to support young people to make safe choices and reduce harm, through increasing their understanding of the effects and risks of drugs and alcohol, and improving their life skills & resilience. Based in Croydon, we work with young people, families, teachers and professionals in schools, colleges and community groups, and the demand for our work has grown rapidly from the start. We’re very grateful for funding from the Wisley Foundation which has enabled us to reach young people and families across Surrey this year. As well as delivering drug education directly ourselves we have also developed an evidence-based, evaluated drug and alcohol education programme, Making Safer Choices, available to schools to be delivered by teachers through PSHE. The powerful verbatim play we commissioned award-winning playwright Mark Wheeller to write, ‘I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die’, was published by Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama in February 2017, and has been studied and performed across the UK and as far as Australia and Canada. It has had four professional Theatre in Education tours of schools, colleges with huge impact, and we hope it will reach Scotland later this year, Covid-19 restrictions permitting.