15th January 2026
A new survey of nearly 11,000 children aged 13-17 has shown one in nine of the respondents had been asked to either sell or transport drugs or store weapons or money in the last twelve months.
The survey was commissioned by the Youth Endowment Fund and found that 1/4 of those approached carried out the activity they were asked to do. This equates to 120,000 children in England and Wales.
Read the full report via Exploitation and gangs | Youth Endowment Fund
Supporting you to equip young people around county lines
To help raise awareness of risk and methods used to recruit (including via gaming platforms and via social media) please contact kathryn@talkabouttrust.org to organise training for staff on county lines.
We also have a full lesson looking at supply of drugs including a short film with an ex victim of county lines (recruited when he was 8) ‘where’s the harm?’ as part of our 5 lessons for Key Stage 3 that you can access here: Talk about Drug, Alcohol and Nicotine Education tool kit | Talk About Trust