introduction
PHARE
Institutional development in KEFs (no. HU-2002-180-05-02 PHARE programme)
1. Structure of the programme
The programme got subvention in 2002 in the frame of Phare project and was coordinated by the Hungarian Ministry of Children, Youth and Sport Affairs and the National Institute for Drug Prevention. Main target of the programme is to implement the tasks arising from National Strategy to combat drugs in line with Article 152 of Nizza Treaty on the following fields:
- development of the system of Co-ordination Forums on Drug Affairs
- support of drug prevention activities.
The programme has three separate components:
- the aim of Twinning is to make NDI workmates (KEF coordinators) competent in coordination tasks, so the NDI can give KEFs professional support.
- through Tender Fund drug prevention programmes can be supported in four categories: prevention in schools, safe entertainment, development of low-threshold organizations, human resource development at civil organizations.
- the component of Technical Assistance helps to carry out tasks dating from Tender Fund and was managed by Mobilitas.
Overall cost of the programme is 2 050 000 EUR, from which 1 500 000 EUR is financed by Phare support, the rest (550 000 EUR) is given by the Hungarian Ministry of Children, Youth and Sport Affairs (GYISM). Senior Programme Officer (SPO) was the deputy state secretary Edina Gabor, the NDI and the Department for European and International Affairs of GYISM were responsible for the implementation.
2. Goals of Twinning project
European Commission established Twinning projects with the purpose to give assistance in the most important fields to the countries standing before their join to the EU. Twinning is a kind of partnership, where the local beneficiary institute (here the NDI) cooperate with a partner institute chosen by himself among EU countries. Essential part of the implementation is that during the programme a pre-accession adviser (PAA) is working in Hungary helped by experts from the partner institute.
Twinning project aimed to make the KEF system more efficient and operable through training NDI and KEF experts. National Strategy to combat drug problem is a document, which was at first drafted to establish KEFs:
»The local Co-ordination Forums on Drug Affairs are key factors in the National Strategy. The local public, municipal, voluntary and church organizations will have themselves represented in these committees: the agents of world of prevention and therapy as well as the local offices of the State Public Health Service (ÁNTSZs), which combine them at an organizational level, the organizations of community development, the child welfare services as well as the justice system, the penitentiaries, the police and the specialised agencies of the municipality. These committees with 8-10 members will collect the information related to the local drug problem, monitor changes, determine the most important risk groups, define the targets of communal prevention, the possibilities of therapy and keep record of the capacities of prevention, community development and therapy. They are to ensure availability of information concerning local services to members of the local community. Annually, they will draw up a plan on local tasks in line with the objectives of the National Strategy and, at the end of the year, draw up a report on the work done. The report will be made known to the members of the local community and forwarded to the Co-ordination Committee on Drug Affairs, to enable them to draw up the country report. The Co-ordination Forum on Drug Affairs in the local community will:
• explore data,
• assess the situation,
• map out the tasks to be done,
• ensure information flow,
• draw up recommendations for local public administration,
• assist in mobilising local resources,
• co-ordinate the activities of local agents,
• filter out overlaps,
• maximise the efficiency of service providers,
• join national programs,
• give feed-back to the local and national levels.«
One of the most important objectives of the Twinning project were to form a more efficient, operable and viable consulting board which work is completely unique in the system of the Hungarian administration. Direct aim of the project are human resource development and to form an operational structure suit with KEF tasks. It supported not only development of KEFs but also efforts of NDI for institute development.
3. Partner organizations
In the project NDI contracted with two prestigious European institutes: with the Dutch Trimbos Institute who was project leader and with DrugScope from London.
In the Netherlands Trimbos Institute cares for mental hygiene and addiction and has an important role in collection, utilization and dissemination of professional knowledge. Trimbos is a kind of vehicle between scientific society, politicians and health organizations; one of its most important tasks is to cover scientific knowledge for experts and laymen as well. They have 220 employees, 15 departments, for example the Department for International Relations which had key role in implementation and management of the Twinning project. This department includes a professional team with skills on more fields. Their activity was very productive especially in cost reducing, programme management, assessment of the problem and monitoring. Furthermore they have experience to draw up and evaluate drug policy guidelines, to organize training programmes, researches, to draft and implement development plans.
DrugScope is an independent institute in the United Kingdom and has leading role in the organization of professional activities related to drug problem. It aims to give support for drug policy activities and to moderate social and individual damages coming from drug use.
The institute provides reliable and effective information for decision makers and for this purpose carries out and initiates researches. DrugScope gets financial support from sources separated from governmental and European Union organizations. Beside these DrugScope got chosen as a partner also because the United Kingdom has a long standing DAT (Drug Action Team)-system, which is similar to the Hungarian KEFs.
4. Financial data
Overall cost of Twinning project was 550,000 EUR. From this amount European Commission gave 500,000 EUR for the implementation of the programme, from we covered foreign experts allowances and the charges incurred from local services (translation, printing, interpreters). The Ministry of Children, Youth and Sport Affairs (GYISM) supported the project with 50,000 EUR for the costs incurred in Hungary and was not possible to cover from PHARE subvention.
The project was financed according to the European Union regulations in reference to PHARE programmes.
5. Twinning project components
The programme included 6 parts:
• Technical and human resource management on the level of KEFs and the NDI
The most important goal of this component was to provide practical, useful experiences in the field of management and project planning for the participants. These techniques can be really useful in the everyday life of institutes and can help to expand capacity for getting more financial resources. It is especially true in the case of KEFs, which are expected to create local drug strategy and to mobilize also other resources than central subvention.
• Methods for status assessment – qualitative and quantitative techniques in the practice – RAR (Rapid Assessment and Response) technique
Quantitative drug epidemiology studies are levelled with European standards, but local, practical qualitative researches are not so much common in the country. Therefore local decision makers and experts working on the field are complaining about lack of information. The introduction and test of RAR research in some Hungarian towns supposed to help in this situation.
• The technique of strategy creation – the methods and use of network building; the possible adaptation of Dutch and British experiences in the practice of community treatment
Scientific literature and experiences point out that teamwork and reconciliation techniques are indispensable in strategy creation. Everybody knows how important is the activity but there are not too many real tools for the implementation. The familiarization and adaptation of Dutch and English examples aimed to use these techniques as wide as possible in Hungary . It was especially important to acquaint KEF experts with the everyday practice of DATs, which programme was the part of this component.
• Practical techniques of vertical and horizontal communication considering operational experiences of DATs – operational methods of institutions related to drug problem – professional organizer function of the Dutch HelpDesk
Professional communication can be supported not only by the techniques of direct communication between institutions but by electronic databases which can provide current information. The future of our Institute was very determined by the recognition and adaptation of information system working at Trimbos Institute. The HelpDesk model makes supply reduction programmes possible to register, an important initiation regarding quality development and professional development in general.
• Quality assurance techniques, quality systems attached management, monitoring techniques, quality standards to support implementation of activities coming from grant fund
Nowadays quality assurance system is already required in all fields. Special systems are created in the human sector and the difference between quality control and quality assurance is more and more clear. Participants of this component got experience that one of the most important tools of institutional working and management is usage of quality assurance systems. They also got to know how and on which fields to use these methods toward organizational development.
• Professional support of Grant Fund activities, grant priorities
Professional support of Grant Fund activities were carried out on two levels: in the prevention field KEFs and civil organizations got to know current and up to date approaches which are important regarding efficiency of prevention programmes; on the other hand TAO (Technical Assistance Organization), which had key role in the implementation, got to know about quality assurance theories and application possibilities of implementation indicators to form criteria and algorithm of monitoring.
6. Activities
Implementation of the project started 1st of September, 2002 and closed 30th of April, 2004.
Central method during implementation was the multiplicator training, which was supposed to ensure sustainable initiations. During 33 weeks 3-5 days training programmes were carried out, so thus 60% of the KEFs were trained in different topics.
KEFs in three towns (Kazincbarcika, Debrecen , Gyor ) organized RAR researches and so got crucial information about drug situation in their area (identification of the most endangered groups, the locally most used drugs and the most typical scenes).
As other results a 200 page handbook for KEFs was published (available also for the public on the site www.kef.hu), a momentous informatics and professional development have been started, which is supposed to provide communication and information claims for the drug field.
As closing of the project a meeting was held for experts in December, 2003, which did not focus on the number of project results as normally but studied how processes generated by PHARE assistance can be used in long term on the level of professional experiences, institute development and policy planning.
7. Experiences
As a summary we can say that all the planned results and products were achieved, all activities were carried out during the project. Excellent and very promising relation has been developed between the Dutch, English and Hungarian partners creating institutional and human bases for future cooperation. Workmates of the prime beneficiary, the National Institute for Drug Prevention got extensive, and for the future very useful experiences during the programme. We also have to mention that personal workload was also very high and not well estimated for the period of the project. On the other hand it was good lesson for the planned future projects: during such big projects institutional frames and cooperation forms are getting rearranged, new balances are needed to create between the different parts.
Although the preparation of the project was elaborated, we had to emphasize careful information about local specialities for foreign experts, because the operation of drug field is very different in the partner countries. For example, we learned from the cooperation that it is good to plan also the costs of assistant staff in the project budget.
During the implementation of the project NDI got so much knowledge and skills which make it capable to lead other projects as a member state institute so increasing European Union funds could be coming to Hungary.
