English Gambling Education Hub launches

The resource is a collaboration among seven organisations.

UK.- The English Gambling Education Hub (EGEH) portal launches this week to provide resources intended to raise awareness of and provide support for gambling-related harm.The initiative is a collaboration among seven organisations, led by GambleAware and including GamCare and Ygam.

Local partners include Aquarius, ARA, Beacon Counselling Trust, NECA and Breakeven­. The programme also involves collaboration with the Scottish and Welsh Gambling Education Hubs.

GambleAware, the grant-making body backed by gaming industry donations, commissioned the EGEH to enhance the capacity of sectors, including youth services, family services and formal education to provide early intervention and prevention efforts against gambling-related harm in children and young people. The virtual community of professionals introduces a Gambling Education Quality Mark, which schools can apply in educating students about gambling harm prevention.

Ygam is offering a Quality Assurance Support Package (QASP) to support organisations in delivering training to children, young people and professionals. Ygam and GamCare have previously targeted young people with the Young People’s Gambling Harm Prevention Programme, which has seen the participation of 24,000 trained professionals and has reached over 48,000 young people. 

To raise awareness of the new initiative, the EGEH is organising a film competition for 11 to 25-year-olds. The winning film will be professionally developed and shown in schools across England.

Kyle Riding, head of programmes at Ygam, said: “This collaborative programme is not only an effective way to centralise support for those who need it, but also a great opportunity to build a network of people who all share the same goal to raise awareness and reduce the impact of gambling harms on children and young people across England.”

Proposed UK gambling levy

The UK government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport has opened a consultation on proposals to implement a levy on gambling operators to fund research, education and treatment (RET). It hopes the levy, proposed in the government’s gambling white paper, will raise £100m a year for the National Health Service (NHS).

The levy will be overseen directly by the NHS, replacing the current system in which GambleAware acts as the grant-making body dispersing funds received from operators’ current voluntary donations. Passing responsibility to the NHS is intended to create greater independence after stakeholders raised concerns about GambleAware’s proximity to the industry.