A report on vaping and children & young people with special educational needs

Key findings include: 

• 65% of the children and young people with SEND that completed our survey reported vaping or trying vaping.
• A high percentage of the children and young people with SEND we spoke to  are vaping on a regular basis (for example 38% reported vaping daily). The research identified a potential relationship between mental health and vaping: 69% of children and young people told us that vaping helps their mental health and/or helps to relieve stress.
• 81% of parents and carers of children with SEND and 70% of children and young people with SEND told us that they thought vaping was either ‘very unsafe’ or ‘quite unsafe’.
• When asked ‘do you think vaping is safer than smoking cigarettes?’, 64% of parents and carers and 50% of young people felt ‘they are both as bad as each other’. Current guidance states that vapes are substantially less harmful than smoking because they do not contain tobacco. The health advice on vaping is clear: vapes, when combined with behavioural support, can help adult smokers to quit, but children and adults who have never smoked should never vape.
• Both young people and parents and carers were also aware that vapes may contain chemicals and other ingredients such as THC (a cannabinoid that is found in cannabis) and other harmful chemicals which may make them unsafe.
• In a focus group discussion, parents and carers offered insight into why their child/ children with SEND vapes. This included fixations on flavours, peer pressure, mental health and vaping helping young people to interact with their peers through giving them a topic of conversation.
• 72% of the parents and carers who responded to our survey said they neither vape nor smoke cigarettes, 28% said they smoke cigarettes and/ or vape themselves. National data shows that if parents smoke, their children are four times more likely to smoke (Department of Health and Social Care, 2021). However, in this study 28% of parents and carers smoke or vape, yet 44% of their children are vaping (either sometimes or daily). This is an interesting finding which supports other research (see Desktop review) which demonstrates that children with SEND are more likely to engage in vaping.
• Parents and carers of young people with SEND told us that they would like more information/ knowledge about the dangers of vaping. Interestingly, children and young people with SEND who completed our survey told us that they do not want more information about the dangers of vaping.
• In terms of advertising of vaping, 75% of children and young people agreed or strongly agreed that ‘adverts encourage children and young people to vape’. 68% of parents and carers agreed or strongly agreed with the statement ‘Adverts and social media encourage young people to vape’.
• Most parents and carers and young people had seen vaping advertised either in shops (80% of young people) or online (65% of young people). Tik-Tok, Instagram and Facebook were the online platforms where people were most likely to see vaping being advertised online. Young people also told us they saw advertising of vapes on Snapchat (42%).
• In terms of support to stop vaping, parents and carers of children and young people with SEND told us that they would like more practical support tailored to the meet SEND needs.