Interviews were conducted with some individuals who had used the booklet
directly with young people. It was possible to obtain quite detailed information
about how the booklet had worked with specific groups, and about which
sections/pages worked best.

The comments below show how experience varied. But a common thread seems to
be that many young people are impatient, and having decided to give up want to
do so suddenly and immediately. The idea that giving up smoking may be a
process involving several stages is alien to them. Some respondents thought you
could best use I Quit! a section at a time to help them think, understand, and plan.
Certainly the least productive experience described here was where the booklet
was given out to a group of young people to read by themselves with little adult
"structuring".

Comments included:

We did it at the beginning of the year. It's very good. We used it at the
open youth club with 35 young people. This session went particularly well.
It had hard hitting facts. The section on how much money smoking cost
was extremely successful. They could work out how much they had spent,
and it led to lots of animated discussion. There was lots of conferring,
"How much do you spend?" and so on. It quite shocked them. It worked
very well indeed. (Youth worker)

I used it with a group of young women (age 15/16) who wanted to give up.
They tended to flip backwards and forwards rather than take a section at a
time. They were not looking for a process but a magic bullet. They were
from a highly deprived community, but they were perfectly competent. It's
a really good booklet but it was difficult to apply with that group. They
don't understand why they're doing their e.g. smoking history. They want
to stop tomorrow.(Health Promotion Adviser)

All the exercises are really worth doing, but they need to be done in a
structured way. I wouldn't give them out again at the beginning. I'd use
the exercises one at a time and base a whole session around each one, and
give the booklet out at the end. (Health Promotion Adviser)

I've used it with 13/14 year olds who said they wanted to stop smoking. We
used it over 5-6 sessions. They liked the booklet and liked doing the
activities where they could fill things in. The smoking history was
particularly liked. The trouble was, they were not really committed to
giving up. They say they want to stop but it's too difficult for them.(Health
Promotion Adviser)

We used it in the youth centre to help them identify the stages they would
have to go through if they were going to give up. (Youth Centre leader)