History of the Network
The occasions that led to the founding of euro net, the European Network for Practical Approaches in Addiction Prevention, were the two separate European Weeks for Addiction Prevention, which were organised by the European Commission in 1992 and 1994 respectively. The Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe took part in both years by organising European workshops on prevention, which brought together experts from ten and then twelve European countries. Those professionals taking part were in unanimous agreement that the supra-regional exchange of knowledge and experience must be continued if effective prevention strategies are to be developed to counter the problem of legal and illegal drug misuse.
The network began to take on concrete form after a committee was established to develop the concept for the euro peers practice-based project. The committee included representatives from organisations and institutions in Belgium, Germany, France and Austria. The euro peers project was finally implemented in 1996 and 1997 with the support of the European Commission.
The encouraging experience had with this first project motivated those institutions taking part to continue their cooperation. Two other projects were planned, whose Guidelines were developed in 1998 and 1999. The euro youth and euro parents projects were then implemented in practice between 2001 and 2003. It was also during this phase that the network structure was established in organisational terms, leading to the adoption of the euro net Charta in 1999.
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