Intervention details
Target group are youth and young adults, who use drugs in the nightlife settings (partyes), mostly from 15 to 30 years old, both genders.
Education for young people for outreach workers (peers). Training for night professionals (security staff, club owners and employees, event organizers) and other professionals who are working with young people who use drugs (educators, youth workers from other organizations, social workers, ...).
Nightlife management (policing, security, transport, ...)Providing information(including harm reduction, material production and debate promotion)Self-assessment, self-helpResearch (collection of data to develop concepts and theories that shall guide future preventive interventions)Counseling, help and treatment (interventions focused on giving advice and therapeutic and medical counseling)Pill (drug) - testingUse of media(posters, flyers, gadgets, ...)Peer-group approach (uses same-age or same-background educators to deliver educational messages to a target group)Use of Internet and other new technologiesInformative talk or lecture (the flow of information is unidirectional (e.g. from expert to pupils))dissemination of brochures/leaflets/posters on club events and partieseducation of peer workers, professionals from other organizations/institutions, who encounter drug use within their work and - trainings of nightlife professionals (organizers, club owners and staff, security, ...),drug testing with brief councelling (performing colorimetric drug testing and collecting samples for further analyis in the National forensic laboratory),interactive media: web pages (including user forum), mobile applications, web councelling application, - councelling service (personal/Skype, telephonic and web counselling),internal evaluation (yearly process evaluation),intervisions and supervisions for professional and peer workers
The aim is to constantly provide realistic and useful information about the drugs, their effects, risks and consequences of their use. As experience shows, users appreciate "realistic" harm reduction approach and are giving positive feedback about information they get from through the project. When planning and performing our activities, interventions are prepared according to the guidelines and experiences from other institutions (for example EMCDDA guidelines and research publications) and organizations, working on the field of harm reduction in the nightlife settings (the organization is also part of NewNET, where exchange between good practice and experience with other organizations, professionals and peers takes place). However, knowledge is used from different professions working in the core and extended team (social work, social pedagogue, medicine, psychotherapy, chemistry) and are applied in the interventions in the nightlife settings. The basic theories behind the intervention is the concept of harm reduction and communication based on transactional analysis theory and motivational interview, applied to different nightlife environments and working conditions. The councellors are using also CBT techniques. If neccesary, harm-reduction interventions are combined with youth work activities / methods and different psychosocial intervention. It is expected that interventions based on theory and evidence (with adequate adaptation to working environments and dynamics of the nightlife settings) have better effect on users changing behaviour and healthier choices in the frames of harm reduction concept.The good effect of the professional work is also visible in positive oral feedback from users (about the service and also reported changes in pattern of their drug use). In order to maintain professional development, quality of the interventions and discuss ethical dilemmas, connected to the work, regular supervisions are done (professional workers) and intervisions (both professional and peer workers).
First aid kit
Evaluation details
- Field interventions, including dissemination of brochures/leaflets/posters on club events (yearly process evaluation; impact evaluation done in 2005),
- education of peer workers (satisfaction with the training; prior work peers gained knowledge is being tested by written and oral exam),
- counselling service (internal evaluation),
- drug checking service (process evaluation)
The process evaluation for different intervention activities was performed on our yearly evaluation meeting, with prepared data of achieved objectives. For 2015 we planned to adapt our field interventions to different enviroments and different user gropus (for example open-air psy parties, electronic events with under-aged visitors, chemsex users). The goal of adaptation of interventions was partly achieved: we adapted intervention on psy parties (with aim to integrate more into psy enviroment and having better contact with the users; 4 interventions performed) and on the electronic events with under-aged visitors, which included longer lasting intervention with continuous presense of the key youth worker (with aim to develop better contact and relationship with younger users) with additional knowledge about motivational interview technique (10 interventions perfomed). Adapting interventions for chemsex users was not implemented, but a cooperation started (mutual project) with two other organizations, working with homosexual population, in order to come into contact with population practicing chemsex and assess the needs of them.
Councelling service: internal short term evaluation was performed. By the end of the 2015, 17 % of users successfully achived goals of the treatment (councelling or psychotherapy); 32 % users were still included in the treatment (councelling or psychotherapy); 23 % were included in short personal coucelling (1-3 sessions), 28 % users drop out of the treatment before achieving planned goals. Distribution of brochures, flyers and posters on the field interventions (electronic events): 54,6 % users reported that they take into acount and use harm reduction messages written on our information material (this evaluation was done within research project performed in 2005).
Coucelling service - evaluation documents (only in Slovene language) are available on this website: http://www.drogart.org/svetovanje/1150/drogart-svetovalnica.html; outcome evaluation of info brochure/leaflets/posters distributions is available in publication (only in Slovene language): Sande M. (ed.). (2007). Na spidu 2. Ljubljana: Združenje DrogArt. For other process evaluations we have only internal reports, which are not available online or in any publication.
