By Sheldon Spackman

Butt Ugly celebrating its impact during final tour

Oct 23, 2018 | 3:30 PM

Officials with a long time anti-tobacco program in central Alberta are celebrating its success over the past 24 years, calling it “Mission Accomplished.”

Gail Foreman, General Manager and Co-Founder of Butt Ugly, says the program has engaged and empowered local youth through social action theatre and peer interaction to have them make healthier and more informed choices regarding tobacco use.

“We use slightly older peers to deliver the program through theatre and drama and small buzz group work after the performance,” explains Foreman. “We teach some avoidance skills and talk about concerns and straight out myths about tobacco and like-products like vaping. You know like people can quit anytime they want, it won’t hurt them if they have just one or two or that vaping is harmless.” 

Butt Ugly started as a one-off pilot project funded by the Alberta Lung Association in 1994, which Foreman says eventually led to fundraising efforts to keep the program going.

“We expanded our program beyond the confines of Red Deer and we have branched out all over central Alberta,” exclaims Foreman. “We had some enormous grants from Health Canada and some smaller grants from other agencies like AHS and the Lung Association and we’ve won a ton of awards. When we started the program, the use of tobacco by children was between 15 and 20 per cent and now it’s down around seven or eight per cent.”

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Foreman credits Butt Ugly’s theatre-style approach of having youth speaking to youth as the winning formula for its success.

“Back when we started, theatre was a big deal, there wasn’t anything like it in Alberta ,” states Foreman. “It was pretty revolutionary. Now kids are into gaming, they’re into online stuff and I think it’s time since we’ve had such great success with lowering the rates, that we can pass the torch to schools and to teachers who are interested in doing more things in classroom and spreading the message in a different way.” 

Changes in technology have also inspired new ways of delivering their message as well adds Foreman.

“Technology has overtaken theatre as the medium to reach youth and we certainly see that with the rise of vaping,” says Foreman. “They definitely have marketed that product very successfully over social media.”

In 2018, a cast of Butt Ugly alumni from the years 2007-2017 have been assembled to put on a final tour to celebrate the program’s success. It started October 22 and runs for two weeks until November 2.

Foreman points out youth who have seen the Butt Ugly program are less likely to try tobacco products. In all, 410 high school students and 96 young adults have helped deliver the Butt Ugly program and its workshops to 60,000 middle school students across central Alberta.

She says there are over 40 different community partners to thank in helping to sustain the Butt Ugly program over the past 24 years, including Health Canada, AHS, Red Deer and District Community Foundation, Red Deer College (RDC), Red Deer Rotary Clubs, Red Deer Legion and nine area school divisions.

In addition, Foreman concludes school districts that have hosted the Butt Ugly program report teen tobacco use is currently at an all-time low, a claim said to be supported by evidence collected in the Canadian Student Tobacco and Drug Use Survey.