The goal of the thesis was to write a script for a brochure ordered by The Federation of Mother and Child Homes and Shelters. The brochure is part of a project called “Drugs abuse in child’s eyes”. The goal of the project is to get parents and child’s circle of acquaintances to think over, how the drug abuse affects to the child. The project also aims to support the work of public health nurses in child welfare clinics to encourage families with children to live without drugs. The brochure is meant to be a tool for public health nurses to ease the discussion about drug abuse.

At this very moment there are as much as hundred thousand children who are someway suffering from their parents’ alcohol and drug abuse. Despite the fact, too often their point of view is not noticed. One of the significant risks of children’s well-being is parents’ alcohol and drug abuse. It’s very important for the child to be able to live in a safe environment so that he can have well-balanced growth in every possible way. That safe environment can be endangered by parents’ alcohol and drug abuse. Public health nurses often feel it’s not easy to talk about this topic with parents and because the problem is so common the brochure as a tool is needed. The child welfare clinic is the place to follow the well-being of the families and with regular meetings it provides the possibility to notice the problems at early stage.

The Finish Centre for Health Promotion looked through the script and approved it for health education material. After this the advertising agency gave a last touch for the brochure by making the layout for it. Brochure was published in March 2011 and it is meant to be given to the families with children at child welfare clinics in four-year-old control. A questionnaire was made for health visitors, in which their opinions about the up-coming brochure were asked and from the results the development assignment was created. The questionnaire was carried out at Valtakunnalliset Neuvolapäivät 2010.