Webinar Series | Strengthening Harm Reduction Advocacy Across Europe

Join us for a comprehensive webinar series, organised by C-EHRN in collaboration with the Rights Reporter Foundation! Designed for the focal points and members of our network, these sessions aim to bolster your advocacy skills and amplify your impact in the realm of harm reduction. Explore various aspects of advocacy, from understanding its importance to developing effective strategies. Each session offers insights to strengthen your advocacy toolkit.

Read about what we will cover in the four sessions and find the registration links below. Can’t attend all the sessions? Please note that joining only one of the sessions is also possible! You can register separately for each session through the respective link.

Webinar 1 – Harm Reduction Advocacy: Planning, Tools and Audiences
May 22, 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Register here.

Advocacy is often a challenge for civil society organisations working in the field of harm reduction because of lack of know-how, capacities and resources. This webinar helps participants to gain a better understanding of what advocacy is: the art of influencing policy decision making. It explains how to plan and monitor advocacy activities. Various advocacy activities, tools and methods will be reviewed and discussed, according to their usefulness in influencing various groups of stakeholders in different contexts. In the second part of the webinar, participants will share their own on-the-ground experiences with advocacy in the field of drug policies, both successes and failures, and discuss lessons learnt.

Webinar 2 – Harm Reduction Video Advocacy
May 29, 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Register here.

Online videos can reach out to a wide audience, mobilise people for a cause, and document best practices and/or human rights abuses. They can be used in public education, give voice to marginalised people, visualise research data and have the potential to go viral on social media. This webinar gives a short introduction to video advocacy, by presenting examples from the 17 years of work of Drugreporter, in the field of drug policy reform and harm reduction advocacy. The webinar will discuss the opportunities and challenges of video storytelling.

Webinar 3 – Meaningful Involvement of Civil Society
June 11, 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Register here.

The meaningful involvement of civil society is now widely accepted in Europe as a crucial part of policy making. However, there is little or no consensus on what constitutes “meaningful” involvement. This webinar will present a new tool developed by the EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs in 2022, the Quality Standards of Civil Society Involvement, and the findings of a focus group study to assess civil society involvement in four European countries (Hungary, Finland, Greece and Ireland). Participants will discuss the often opposing views on the role of civil society, the challenges and opportunities of civil society involvement in various political contexts at European, national and local levels. The webinar will address the worrying trend of shrinking space for civil society in Europe.

Webinar 4 – Fighting Disinformation and Moral Panics
June 18, 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Register here.

Drug policies are often influenced by sensational media reporting that fuels moral panics about drugs and leads to the othering of people who use drugs. The spread of disinformation is a major barrier to drug policy reform, undermines basic norms and values like human rights and scapegoats civil society organisations. This webinar addresses strategies to fight disinformation in an age that is often characterised as post-truth. Participants will discuss what methods they use to educate the public about drugs and drug policies and how to defend civil society from politically motivated attacks.

Access the toolkit supporting service providers in drug demand and harm reduction quality standard implementation

Drug demand and harm reduction quality standards support achieving high-quality programmes and services, ensuring that interventions are delivered well. However, their implementation can be a headache for service providers. The good news is that the helpful quality standard implementation toolkit developed under the FENIQS-EU project is now available online, giving guidance through every step of the implementation process!

Besides the first section clarifying the basic concepts of quality standards, the toolkit includes a chapter on the key factors for a successful implementation. This is followed by a section dedicated to guiding service providers through each step of the way, also discussing the possible barriers and challenges they might face when putting quality standards into practice. The final two sections provide some inspiring examples, including good practices and accounts of service providers from all over Europe.
 
The toolkit can be found on the FENIQS-EU project’s website both in an easy-to-navigate online and in a downloadable pdf format, accompanied by video tutorials for each chapter.
 

A new drug demand and harm reduction quality standard implementation toolkit will be launched in June

Drug prevention, treatment/social reintegration and harm reduction programmes and service providers will soon have access to a helpful toolkit to support them when it comes to applying quality standards in their day-to-day activities.

Quality standards can support interventions and organizations in improving the quality of their professional practice. However, the currently available documents are often complex and abstract, which can discourage the personnel delivering prevention, treatment/social integration and harm reduction programmes and services. The quality standards implementation toolkit has been developed as a response to this issue as part of the FENIQS-EU project.

It provides educational resources and step-by-step guidance to break down the QS implementation into a feasible process. The toolkit includes a presentation of the basic concepts, practical guidance, tools and tips for service providers and a selection of good practices which can serve as examples.

The toolkit will be presented at the FENIQS-EU final conference taking place in Prague between the 12th-13th June and will be available on the FENIQS-EU project’s website in early July, along with a video tutorial regarding its contents.

FENIQS EU: Call for Participation

We are calling Civil Society Organizations to apply for a guided and supported training to implement quality standards in drug demand reduction.

The call is specifically for Civil Society Organisations from the areas of prevention, treatment / social reintegration and harm reduction.

The FENIQS EU project, will train and provide guidance to nine service providers in the areas of drug prevention, treatment, and harm reduction. The 1-day training will be based on the Quality Standards Implementation Toolkit prepared within the project, and delivered in locations of participant organisations.

The training will provide a general introduction to quality standards, and guide service providers through the steps necessary for their implementation. It will address issues like diagnosis and needs assessment, goals of quality standards implementation, choosing the standards to be applied, evaluating the services and quality standards, communication, and sustainability. Possible challenges that may be encountered at each of the steps will be also addressed.

Deadline for applications – 31st December 2022