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

NATIONAL
100 youth workers have been trained in 11 organisations in Lebanon; but, as yet, the
overall outcomes and impact of the different youth groups' activities has not been
evaluated.
Activities so far have been comprised of a set of diverse and complementary approaches,
each of which was developed by another institution. These have included: the development
of a play; the creation of a drug abuse prevention web site; work in and with
schools to integrate prevention into the school environment; research and the compilation
of statistics on the reasons for, and the extent of, drug abuse; and the creation of IEC
materials.
Lessons Learned:
● Youth are a valuable resource for prevention: they are efficient, and reach a
large proportion of the target population: The project was initiated to meet the
demands of young people for the prevention of drug addiction. Working with young
people means that they themselves are in charge of tackling a problem that predominantly
affects them. Young people are more likely to respond to other young people, and
this approach avoids negative reactions in young people that might be provoked by
parents, social workers or adults in general. A main aim of the project was to reverse the
bad influence that young people can exert on each other through peer pressure, and to
turn this into a positive influence, thus giving young people a greater chance of leading
a healthy life.
“It is important to
note, that the youth
themselves are
decision makers
when it comes to the
projects they carry
out”
● Collaborating with existing organisations makes use of human and financial
skills and resources already in place: This approach institutionalises drug abuse
prevention into various settings and contexts. To carry out each project from the centre
would be more expensive; besides, the organisations are already working at the grassroots
level and know the situation and the target population much better than anyone
else. Collaboration with a university was based on the recognition that students, especially
those in their first year, are particularly prone to drug abuse due to the new
circumstances in which they find themselves. The group of youth workers from the
university set up a social space where first year students could meet with them to discuss
any difficulties or problems they had encountered.
●The approach is very flexible, and allows tailoring to local needs and social environments:
The collaborating organisations have their own needs, possibilities and
competencies. No project is imposed on any of them, but rather the elaboration and
adoption of a project that is useful and efficient in the context that the organisation
works in is encouraged. In an area where drug cultivation has been carried out for
generations and is part of the local culture, a group of young people will take a very
different drug abuse prevention approach than in an urban area where young people
face the problems of a more metropolitan lifestyle.
● A sharper focus on integrating evaluation into the youth workers' activities
is needed: One of the major problems encountered was that of carrying out evaluations
for each of the activities, as well as for the project as a whole. This is mainly due
to the diversity of the different activities carried out and the high level of flexibility in
their implementation. For instance, one youth worker group wrote and practised a play
on addiction which was shown in different places to different groups of young people.
On one occasion it was shown to a thousand young people; on another, it was shown
to audiences small enough to allow it to be followed up by a discussion. This makes
standardised and rigorous evaluation difficult. In addition, as experienced by many
other organisations, there is little access to information on evaluation methods and
tools, and so projects are not monitored and recorded as rigorously as would be ideal. 71