PDF (Lessons learned in drug abuse prevention: a global review)

NATIONAL
● Working in collaboration with organisations that are already established and
have experience with the target group is cost-effective and practical: The
following steps were achieved efficiently and allowed cost-sharing: screening for the
target population; reaching the target population; designing and elaborating action
plans; executing action plans; self-evaluation and reporting of the actions taken; establishing
good interaction between the supervisors and the workers on the field; and the
use by collaborators of their own facilities and resources in the execution of the project.
● The project was realised by highly-experienced staff and persons working
together with the common concern of improving the lives of street children:
The project was perfectly integrated into a comprehensive plan for the benefit of street
children, and consisted of well-elaborated and well-executed components.
● The project was designed to meet specific needs, and was successful as a consequence:
The specific needs of the project were to translate, to adapt and to fieldtest
the manual. The project was designed to meet these needs by appointing the right
persons for its supervision and evaluation, who in turn selected key persons working
in the field of drug abuse prevention to field-test the final manual.
● The project was successful despite the lack of resources, as it was implemented
in a professional environment: The professionals involved realised the project
successfully; this success came in spite of the scarcity of resources and was mainly due
to the climate of partnership and mutual interest.
● The objectives and expectations of NGOs involved should be made clear
before the project is implemented: This is important when aiming to provide an
instrument to maintain the focus of the project, and to avoid sliding into broader and
more ambiguous prevention actions that are not related to the manual.
Adapting a written manual
● Imported materials need to be translated linguistically and culturally if they
are to be successful: The work and collaboration of and between three groups made
the whole translation and adaptation process feasible: the team eventually involved
interpreters, experts in the field of drug abuse prevention, and academics. The joint
work of these three parties resulted in a satisfactory manual that was understandable,
easy-to-read and reliable.
● Linguistic translations are not always straightforward: It is not always possible
to find an equivalent Arabic word for one in English. The translation team occasionally
had to compromise, finding the best word to match the original word - if not exactly,
then as closely as possible.
Realising the project
● New practical materials that are introduced must be supported by a training
component for the outcome to be successful: Training increases an individual’s
understanding of the document. The field-testing of the manual resulted in further
adaptation of the contents so that a relevant tool could be produced.
● The manual should be pre-tested in the field to ensure that all educators
have the same level of understanding of its contents: The success of the use of
the manual depends totally on the quality of training and education of NGO staff. It is
therefore necessary initially to test the staff's use of the manual in the field before
wider use is implemented.
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