Overview of the Community Drug Strategies program

Overview of the Community Drug Strategies Program

The Community Drug Strategies program implements, through a community engagement framework, illicit drug prevention and alcohol misuse education, including:

• supporting co-operative action to address drug and alcohol misuse at a local level through Community Drug Action Teams
• developing and implementing state-wide information and education prevention campaigns and resources.

The Community Drug Strategies program is divided into:

• Drug and Alcohol Information and Education campaigns and resources, which raise community awareness of effective ways to deal with drug and alcohol issues and provides education regarding drug and alcohol harms
• Community Engagement and Action, which supports communities in addressing drug and alcohol misuse at a local level
• state-wide drug prevention education programs (for example: drug info @ your library).

The Community Drug Strategies program is an initiative of the NSW Drug Summit Government Plan of Action (1999) and implements select recommendations from both the NSW Drug Summit and NSW Summit on Alcohol Abuse 2003.

Community Drug Action Teams are the primary community engagement strategy used by the Community Drugs Strategies program. CDATs are coalitions of government, non-government, welfare services, businesses and community members, that deliver projects ranging from information resources and drug free events through to improvements to service delivery within local communities.

Following changes to Ministerial and administrative responsibilities concerning drugs and alcohol, the Community Drug Strategies Program was transferred from NSW Premier’s Department to NSW Health in August 2005. The program was incorporated into the Mental Health and Drugs and Alcohol Office in 2007. The program now sits within the Drug and Alcohol Clinical Policy Office.

The Community Drug Strategies has a regional structure with staff in each of the regions and a small head office team based in NSW Health, Miller Street, North Sydney. The strategies operate at a state, regional and local level.

This Community Drug Strategies program provides resources for the following priorities:

• a regional community drug action program;
• management of drug education and information programs;
• building the capacity of local Community Drug Action Teams to perform their role
• grants for special local projects;
• a local government drug information program; and
• regular evaluation of our effectiveness.

Strategy policy documents