Participatory Handbook for Youth Drug Abuse Prevention Programmes: A Guide for Development and Impro

This drug abuse prevention handbook is designed to help youth groups around the world identify the real issues that concern them and develop programmes to reach their peers. The philosophy behind this document is that, if substance abuse is to be tackled, young people should lead this effort since they know their own needs better than anyone else.

Publishers - the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and The Global Youth Network - detail the following key concepts guiding this handbook:

• Participation - young people have ideas and solutions to propose and if they are given the chance to be heard and to work, their contribution can be significant. Participation can provide young people with a sense of purpose and direction, hopefully giving them the feeling of being more connected to the activities and the mission of the programme.
• Peer-to-peer - young people are usually much more effective than adults in communicating prevention messages to other young people because they share similarexperiences and use similar language, and their interactions are often more authentic than those of adults.
• Cultural sensitivity - local conditions, populations, and cultures differ from one part of the world to another - effective programmes have tended to come up with unique and specific solutions for their own communities.

The handbook is mainly the result of a participatory process involving more than 30 youth drug abuse prevention programmes from across the globe. Most of the information presented draws on the real-life experiences of youth and adults involved in these programmes. Additional information reflects the work of various United Nations agencies (UNICEF, WHO, UNESCO, UNAIDS, UNFPA) and NGOs that have been developed initiatives to prevent drug abuse among young people. Drawing on these experiences, the handbook covers 5 broad areas:

1. General information about drugs and drug abuse among youth. (More detailed information can be obtained from the various UNDCP publications mentioned in the appendix).
2. Methods and techniques for investigating the drug abuse situation in a particular city, town, community, neighbourhood, or school. The idea is that learning about the drug culture in one's community will provide a basis for understanding the prevention needs of young people.
3. Description of the process of analysing the community-based information collected and then planning an initiative to address drug abuse problems that may be present.
4. Methods and techniques that have been effective in addressing the problem of drug abuse among youth.
5. Information on how to manage the resulting drug abuse prevention programme and to evaluate one's work.

The handbook is downloadable in PDF format in these languages:
English
Chinese
French
Spanish
Russian