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Alcohol Resources
Alcohol Concern is the national agency on alcohol misuse. Their website is useful and regularly updated, press releases, publications and fact sheets are all on-line and there is a searchable database of alcohol services. 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. The DoH launched the Hub of Commissioned Alcohol Projects and Policies, an online resource enabling commissioners working in England to share their experiences of planning and implementing local alcohol harm reduction strategies and initiatives. (March 2008) The Home Office has published two new reports on the impact of the 2003 Licensing Act - an impact evaluation of the Act in East England and Yorkshire and a general evaluation of the impact on crime and disorder. (March 2008) The Government in partnership with Alcohol Concern has just published a toolkitaimed to help areas implement the national alcohol strategy locally. (January 2008) The final National Alcohol Strategy is published (June 2007) |
Drug Resources
All work relating
to drugs in the UK is driven by the National Drug Strategy.
The strategy itself and all key documents relating to it is
posted here.
Substance
Misuse.net provides
a very regularly updated UK drug resource with an emphasis
on Welsh issues and different sections for general public,
practitioners and problem users. Subscribe to
the Daily
Dose and get
a round-up of national and international substance misuse
news in your in-box every day.
The Drug Interventions Programme is
the current Government initiative aimed at integrating drug
treatment interventions within the criminal justice system.
Initially rolled out to 36 high crime areas starting in
2003, it is intended to be a national model. The Home Office
hosts a drug-related
crime website which
gives details of the latest Government initiatives, provides
press releases and downloadable publications. The European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction is
perhaps the best resource to compare drug use and responses
across Europe.
Findings is
a quarterly magazine which collates evidence from around the
world on effective interventions on treatment and prevention
in particular. The National
Treatment Agency was established in
2001 to increase
the availability, capacity and effectiveness of treatment
for drug misuse in England. The
work programme of the NTA and the results of consultations
and research that it has commissioned is all available on
the worksite as is detailed guidance to Models of care, the
new blueprint for drug treatment services.
The National Drug Treatment
Monitoring Service publishes
up-to-date treatment statistics online on a national, Drug
Action Team and agency basis. The work of the Metropolitan Police's drug directorate is publicised on-line and details many new drug enforcement initiatives within London. |
Regeneration
Resources
All new developments around business support can be found on the BERR website. Check out the new BERR youtube channel (published 27 February 2009). The government published its vision for simplifying business support schemes in March 2008. The main portal for all business support scheme is likely to be Business Link. Reach London Business Link here. The government again encouraged SMEs to sign up at its online portal for accessing lower value contracts - supply2.gov.uk in a press release on 4 February 2009. The government has launched its Empowerment Fund - a rare initiative in that it aims to build the capacity of the third sector rather than merely fund projects. For those interested in Social Enterprise, the Social Enterprise Coalition is a good place to start. The Bromley-by-Bow Centre is one of the best examples of social enterprise and one to which Russell provided advice and support on monitoring and evaluation for some years. |