It’s a bloody and confronting image: a transit van with no seats in the back, packed with nine young people with not a single thing to grab hold of when it hit a telegraph pole near Sydney University at 90km/hour.

And it’s an image that has stayed with former NSW police officer Trent Southworth, who spoke to parents and senior boys at Newington on 27 February as part of a wellbeing series supported by Newington’s P&F.

Mr Southworth spent 14 years with NSW Police, eight of them in a youth liaison role. There isn’t much he hasn’t seen, from horrific accidents fuelled by alcohol to teenagers distraught and confused by why a single Ecstasy tablet has had little effect on them, yet left one of their friends comatose.

His talks to students in Years 10, 11 and 12 covered issues including peer pressure, personal safety, life choices and rights, responsibilities and respect.

He gave Newington boys an insider’s knowledge about how drugs, alcohol and violence can impact their lives, telling them:

• Choose your friends carefully. Good friends are the ones who stop you from getting involved in a fight (with the potential for charges of assault or affray). They don’t egg their mates on;
• If you do encourage an assault, you can be found guilty of committing the same crime, even if you didn’t do a thing;
• One moment can change a life. Mt Southworth cited the example of former swimmer Nick Darcy who, on the night he was selected in the Australian team for the Beijing Olympics, king hit his teammate Simon Cowley. Cowley suffered multiple fractures to his face; D’Arcy was dropped from the Australian team, received a suspended prison sentence and declared bankruptcy after Cowley was awarded $180,000 in damages.
• He is regularly hired by major corporations to cull job applicants based on the images they post on social media;
• Most employers will ask for a pre-employment medical check. People who have used marijuana will test positive – but so will people who have only been sitting a room with others who are smoking the drug. The result? No job.
• Carrying a fake ID is fraud, and a criminal offence;
• People can choose whether to get into a car driven by someone who is drunk or affected by drugs.

Mr Southworth took a realistic approach to teenage behaviour, noting most boys have their first drink before they are 16. He urged Year 10, 11 and 12 boys to resist peer pressure.

“If you drink booze at your own pace, it will prevent many problems,” he said. “Group dynamics can be difficult, but it’s when you get into a shout or sculling competition that problems start.”

Drinking water or eating have no impact on how quickly the body processes alcohol, and it takes two hours of intoxication levels to peak. Body size can have a huge impact on how much you can consume.

Other issues addressed in the talk included the highly-addictive nature of the drug Ice, its questionable contents (including crushed glass) and its destructive consequences.

“When you buy drugs, it’s Russian Roulette,” Mr Southworth said. “You don’t know what’s in it.”

“When things go wrong at a party, don’t wait to call triple 0. Don’t wait it out. Mates need to be on top of it look out for each other and seek professional help.”

Mr Southworth’s talk was one of a series planned at Newington this year and supported by the P&F. As well as his forums with students, he gave a seminar to parents.