A drug awareness programme will see a major shift as it changes its outreach approach – and its name.

From today, Pride Bermuda will rebrand itself as Shift – a change made to coincide with a change in methods to put more emphasis on targeting educators and role models to promote addiction prevention.

Samantha Smith, Pride Bermuda’s head of brand management, said: “The biggest change we’re making from Pride to Shift is that as Pride Bermuda we focused on the young person.

“As Shift, while the young person will still get a focus, our primary audience will be the educator – that will be anyone who has an influence in the development of a young person.”

She added: “We recognise that we can teach those children things in the school setting and on the playing field, but when they go home or go into other areas in the community, if that message is not translated and being enforced then it’s a lot harder for them to accept the message.

“But as we change from Pride to Shift, we’re carrying that core value of substance abuse prevention with us.”

Ms Smith said that the change came with a review of their drug prevention research and community needs.

She added that Shift would focus more on its model for social emotional learning in the coming years.

Ms Smith said that the model offered lessons on emotional regulation and decision-making, while also showing others how they can get support from social groups such as family members.

She added: “Social emotional learning has the ability to impact a broad range of risk behaviours and antisocial behaviours.

“This shift is just a way to build those skills, but we also recognise that adults need them just as much as our young people.”

The rebrand will be made official this evening during the launch of the group’s podcast The Shift.

The podcast is intended to be a “thought-provoking” introduction into Shift’s approach to addiction prevention and why it works, as well as how others can make positive changes towards drug counselling. The podcast will air on Hott 107.5 at 5.30pm.

Shift started in 1988 as the Parent Resource Institute for Drug Education.

Several parents travelled overseas to learn about drug prevention and took their knowledge back to the island to education others about addiction.