Smoking and Vaping

We work with our community and local partners to create smoke and vape-free environments.

Key actions include:
• Reducing the uptake and harms of smoking and vaping through community-led initiatives and settings-based approaches
• Implementing policies and procedures that create smoke and vape-free environments in key public settings where people spend their time such as early childhood services, schools and health services
• Implementing statewide evidence-based programs and initiatives such as the Achievement Program and Quit Victoria resources.

Smoking and Vaping Prevention in Schools

Preventing young people from taking up smoking and vaping is crucial to protecting their physical, social and mental wellbeing. Schools can play an important role in prevention by creating a supportive smoke and vape-free environment. Creating a supportive smoke and vape-free environment using a whole-school approach can improve the health and wellbeing of young people, their families and school staff.

The team support schools in the South Coast through the actions outlined in the Smoke and Vape-Free Toolkit For Schools. The resources in this toolkit use a whole-school approach to health and wellbeing based on five domains; leadership and commitment, healthy physical environment, healthy culture, student teaching and learning, supported staff, and families and community partnerships.

The team are running the South Coast Smoke and Vape-Free School Challenge during Term 2 - 3 2026. The challenge encourages Year 8 students to take on the role of community health researchers to create innovative and engaging campaigns that promote a smoke and vape-free future. Schools can participate by contacting prevention@basscoasthealth.org.au.

Useful school resources:
• Checklist for schools
• Vaping facts resources
• Seeing Through the Haze school curriculum resources
• No smoking and vaping signs
• Talking to your teen about vaping

The Achievement Program

The Achievement Program is a health and wellbeing program that helps to create healthier environments that benefit children, educators and families. The program uses an evidence-based framework to support whole-organisation health and wellbeing approaches in early childhood services and schools.

Prevention of Vaping and E-Cigarette Use in Secondary Schools Initiative (2023 - 2024)

The Prevention of Vaping and E-cigarette Use in Secondary Schools initiative was delivered between March 2023 - June 2024 to combat the rising epidemic of e-cigarette and vaping use among young people.

The initiative addressed a gap which existed at the time in school-focused resources and support to prevent vaping. It comprised of two key elements; student vaping prevention workshops and a toolkit of resources for schools to implement a whole-school approach to prevent vaping.

The student workshops focused on the marketing tactics used by e-cigarette companies to target young people, the impacts of vaping, encouraging students to develop ways to say ‘no’ if offered an e-cigarette, and raising awareness of support services to stop vaping. The toolkit supported the application of a whole-school approach to prevent vaping. This included activities such as a school policy review, updating existing ‘No Smoking’ signs to ‘No Smoking or Vaping’, vaping prevention education resources that could be used across the school curriculum and resources for parents/carers.

Ten secondary schools were approached to participate in the initiative, with six taking up the opportunity. In total, 42 vaping prevention student workshops were delivered in these schools. Evaluation data was collected from students, school staff, workshop facilitators and parents and carers. Below is a snapshot of the key evaluation findings.

The evaluation data strongly indicates the Prevention of Vaping and E-cigarette Use in Secondary Schools initiatives was a needed and successful endeavour. The initiative significantly impacted students’ perception, knowledge and behaviours towards vaping by providing a platform for discussion, engagement, and access to current information and resources.

Whilst the initiative has now ended, the team continue to support secondary schools in the South Coast through the actions outlined in the Smoke and Vape-Free Toolkit For Secondary Schools.

Smoking and Vaping