European Workshop for Addiction Prevention, December 2016

In December 2016 representatives of regional and national Institutions from EU countries met in Ledgen-Asbeck (Germany) to exchange their knowledge.

The workshop was organized by the Coordination Office for addiction-related Issues of the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (Regional Assocation of Westphalia – Lippe, LWL) in collaboration with euro net and the Hessische Landesstelle für Suchtfragen e.V. (Hessian State Office for Addiction Matters, HLS), supported by the German Federal Ministry of Health.

Keypoint of that Workshop was “Addiction prevention among young adults, (18-25 years olds)”.

Aside from general information about the situation of Addiction Prevention in the participating countries, initiatives and best-practices-Projects were presented to learn from each other, throughout Europe.

One result was, that the participants agreed that Addiction Prevention is a responsibility for the whole society.

Overall it have been informative and work-intensive days which results are to find in our publication. In the first part of this publication the different situations and keypoints are presented. Practical is the second part: the good-practice-examples are described in a tabular overview.

Hopefully you like the publication, please feel free to send it to interested people and institutions

Click for Support – REALized, an online intervention for NPS users

The project ‘Click for Support – REALized‘ (co-funded by the European Commission) is the follow-up of the former ‘Click for Support’ project (2014-2015), in which guidelines for effective web-based interventions (WBI) in selective drug prevention have been developed. In the current project, a web-based intervention will be developed by the same euro net partners, and the WBI will focus on young consumers of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS). The focus has been chosen due to the spreading phenomenon of NPS and increase of their consumption throughout Europe, as well as the general lack of online information about NPS’ effects and possible harms for young consumers.

Methods
The web-based offer will contain an information section, a self-test for users to assess their own consumption, and a structured 30-day intervention programme, whose main element will be an interactive consumption diary. For the development of the website, the project group will collaborate with an IT company experienced in developing websites related to drug use interventions. The content will be based on best-practice research of on- and offline prevention offers focusing on NPS, and on input from the target group through two rounds of national focus groups with young NPS consumers. Furthermore, the project group will be informed by several experts regarding NPS, WBIs, the target group, and online (addiction) counselling during two workshops and a training for national prevention experts. Lastly, the content and concept will be based on the best practices regarding illicit drug-related WBIs found in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium in the previous project, as well as its final guidelines.

Operation and Evaluation
The WBI will have a beta-phase after development, during which focus groups with young NPS consumers giving feedback on the WBI will inform the project group on possible adaptations and improvements. In an effort to gain interest and attention for the offer, it will be disseminated widely through different social media. Subsequently, the WBI will be operated for 5 months by the national prevention experts, after which the web-based NPS offer will be evaluated. All results will be presented at the final conference in Münster, 13th and 14th November 2017.

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European Workshop for Addiction prevention

It is common knowledge that the risk of addiction concerns all age groups and classes of society and does not stop at national borders. Unfortunately, it is not yet common practice for experts in the field of addiction prevention to cooperate and learn from each other on the European level.

Against this background, the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe, (LWL), Koordinationsstelle Sucht in cooperation with the euro net, European network for practical approaches in addiction prevention and Hessische Landesstelle für Suchtfragen e. V. (HLS) is organizing a „European Workshop of Addiction Prevention” which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Health.

The main focus of the workshop will be a European exchange of information, initiatives and effective projects. Key topic will be addiction prevention for and together with the target group of 18- to 25-year-olds.

For this target group a particularly high consumption of substances is being recorded which can lead to risky consumption, substance abuse or addiction. According to recent research findings, alcohol, tobacco and cannabis are the main substances consumed by this target group. Additionally, poly drug use and behavior-related addictions, e.g. internet and media addiction have to be taken into account.

Early interventions, custom-made programs, structural networking and a balanced policy-mix can be helpful when approaching this issue. Reaching the target group of young adults between 18 and 25 years is a particular challenge, especially considering those in disadvantaged living situations. Seeing that this age group shows extremely high consumption rates, there is an urgent need for action.

In order to promote cooperation and exchange of experiences and knowledge on the European level, results of effective, successful and (preferably) evaluated projects from various European countries as well as practical experiences will be shared and discussed at the “European Workshop of Addiction Prevention”.

We are very happy to be able to make this unique European exchange in the field of addiction prevention possible.

National conference „CLICK FOR SUPPORT“ in Slovenia

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]National conference Slovenia

The national conference was organised at NIJZ – regional unit Maribor on September 4th. After short information on euro net, project Click for support and key-recommendations from the Guideline for effective web-based interventions in selective drug prevention, about 25 participants in small workshops took part in a focused debates on different aspects of the Guideline. Participants were from NIJZ, NGOs for addiction prevention, early intervention, youth and drug counseling and help, psychological services, schools, and local community. Experiences of the NGO on web-counseling and also technical issues including security, anonymity and user friendliness were also included in the programme. Debate raised several questions and suggestions for dissemination.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

New Slovenian Partner

Olivera-Prikazna Olivera Stanojević Jerković is the new euro net member for Slovenia. She followes Dr. Igor Krampac, who retired recently.
Olivera Stanojević Jerković represents the National Institute of Public Health (NIPH), a public institute with 400 employees. NIPH is the central institution, which provides the majority of public health activities in Slovenia and implements research and training in this field.

Evidence based addiction prevention

A group of experts in the field of addiction prevention developed a memorandum “evidence-based addiction prevention” (Memorandum Evidenzbasierung in der Suchtprävention – Möglichkeiten und Grenzen. Köln (2014)). Two euro net members were part of this expert group (Austria, Germany). You can download the document in German version.