European drug prevention quality standards (EDPQS) Toolkit 1: funding and decision-making

Summary

This is one of four toolkit,s developed as part of a follow-up project to the European drug prevention quality standards.

The European Drug Prevention Quality Standards Toolkit 1 is aimed at decision-makers (including policy-makers, policy-managers, policy-officers, commissioners and funders) working in the field of drug prevention or health promotion at national, regional, county or local administrative levels.

Toolkit 1 is of particular value if you wish to:

• Consider key issues for supporting quality in drug prevention from the decision-maker’s perspective
• Assess whether initiatives proposed for funding or other forms of support are likely to be of high quality
• Review already funded initiatives or programmes with a view to assuring their quality

The Toolkit is structured in four sections:

1. An Overview
2. Policy Guide – Part 1: Challenges in selecting high quality prevention initiatives
3. Policy Guide – Part 2: Key issues for promoting high quality in drug prevention
4. An Assessment Quality Criteria Checklist

Some of the key messages within the Policy Guide include:

• Ineffective programmes and approaches should not be funded, even if they are considered popular
• It is better to finance a smaller number of high quality programmes with a realistic budget rather than a large number of vaguely elaborated programmes which may have a low budget but also no or unwanted effects
• It is important to have transparent selection and funding mechanisms that encourage quality, including needs assessment and evaluation

The Assessment Quality Criteria Checklist is an aid to help decision-makers review and select drug prevention activities in a systematic way. It can be used in everyday practice to help assess project proposals in the funding decision-making process, as well as during the follow-up of the implementation of already supported activities. Toolkit users are encouraged to adapt this tool to meet local requirements.