Resources
The NHS Confederation has published an up-to-date report on the cost of alcohol consumption to the NHS (January 2010)
The Home Office has published a new guide to setting up alcohol arrest referral schemes (November 2009)
Alcohol use among young people in London is increasing. See the London Assembly report here. (June 2009)
The national alcohol strategy: Safe.Sensible.Social. is available for download here in full or summary versions.
There is an excellent online toolkit giving advice on how to develop a local alcohol strategy, created by Alcohol Concern and the London Drug and Alcohol Network.
The Home Office maintains a mini-site providing a a range of resources on tackling alcohol-related crime.
The National Treatment Agency is slowly assuming responsibility for alcohol as well as drug treatment. Latest developments can be found in the alcohol section of its website.
Russell has been involved in the alcohol field since 1985 in a range of capacities including training, policy advice, strategy development and service evaluations.
For three years he provided specialist consultancy advice and support to Alcohol Concern on alcohol-related crime and disorder issues.
Russell has undertaken over 20 alcohol-specific assignments in his career as a consultant. These have covered a wide range of areas including:
-
The development of local alcohol strategies
-
Evaluating and designing interventions to meet the needs of alcohol using offenders
-
Designing responses to alcohol-related crime
-
Night-time economy including alcohol server training
-
Wet provision for street drinkers
In addition he has undertaken service reviews on numerous alcohol treatment services.
He has written a guide to partnership between alcohol agencies and the criminal justice system for Alcohol Concern.
He is co-author on a study of the meaning of young peoples drinking for the Home Office.
He is currently completing a study with a team from ICPR to undertake research into alcohol interventions with offenders for the National Offender Management Service. The findings will be published later in 2009.
Russell is in the final phase of producing a feasibility study into the need for 'wet' provision for street drinkers in Croydon.
Like everyone else in the alcohol field, Russell is still waiting for the government to provide the funding streams necessary to tackle the full range of alcohol-related harms. Alcohol Concern and the Institute for Alcohol Studies work hard to keep alcohol issues alive in the public consciousness and develop much of the policy and practice in the field.
The Department of Health's Alcohol Learning Centre is an excellent website for commissioners and providers of alcohol services.