About Us

The first UK National Drugs Strategy was published in 1998. In 2002 the strategy was updated to incorporate lessons learned from the previous four years and to place more emphasis on certain areas. The new Drugs Strategy was published in 2008, titled “Drugs: protecting families and communities”. At a national level, the work is co-ordinated by the Drug Strategy Directorate, which is based within the Home Office and the National Treatment Agency. The NTA was established in 2001 to promote best practice in drug treatment and monitor the drug treatment provision at a local level.

 The National Drugs Strategy, “Drugs: protecting families and communities” was created to not only build on the success of the past ten years, but also to learn lessons. The focus for the new strategy will be to:

• Focus more on families, addressing the needs of parents and children as individuals, as well as working with whole families to prevent drug use, reduce risk, and get people into treatment;
• Give a stronger role to communities, protecting them from damage that drugs cause through strong enforcement action, using all available powers, sanctions and levers, giving them a voice and listening to their concerns;
• Target money and effort where we will make the most difference by making sure people are successfully completing treatment and re-establishing their lives, and by focusing on the drug users causing the most harm to communities;
• Work together on shared problems across institutional boundaries – for example, ensuring that children’s social services know about drug-using parents where children are at risk as a result of their drug use, or local communities can work with police and other agencies to disrupt and dismantle open street markets and close down cannabis factories and crack houses; and
• Be clear that drug users have a responsibility to engage in treatment in return for the help and support available.

Drug Action Teams have been developed across the country to take responsibility for the implementation of the national strategy at a local level. DAATs are multi-agency partnerships that should have senior representation from locally agreed organisations.

In Croydon, the membership of the Drug and Alcohol Action Team is as follows:

This group is responsible for the development of the local strategy and to review progress in the delivery of the drug strategy. Croydon DAAT meets four times per year in order to fulfil these aims.

A Drug and Alcohol Action Team Co-ordination Unit ensures that the DAAT plans are implemented at a local level.  It is responsible for ensuring that plans and targets are communicated to providers, that DAAT money is allocated appropriately and to disseminate information that comes out from Government departments and other organisations such as guidance, research and conference details.  In Croydon, the DAAT Co-ordination Unit comprises of nine staff:

DAAT Co-ordinator - To oversee the work of the whole team and lead on the strategic development of services across all areas

DAAT Office Manager - To provide both business and administrative support to all members of the team and to hold overall responsibility for the co-ordination of the Unit, including the responsibility of overseeing the DAAT Drugs Awareness & Basic Alcohol Training programmes

DAAT Administrative Officer – To provide administrative support to all members of the team, arrange and then minute meetings and book people on to the Drugs & Alcohol Awareness courses

Joint Commissioning Manager - To be responsible for the commissioning of adult drug treatment services, the development and implementation of the DAAT Treatment Plan and the allocation of the Pooled Treatment Budget and related budgets.

Service Development Manager - To develop and coordinate initiatives focusing on service delivery efficiencies within the DAAT team and together with sector partners, with a particular focus on commissioning activities and sector communication initiatives.

Young People's Co-ordinator - To be responsible for the commissioning of young people's drug services, the development and implementation of the Young People's Substance Misuse Treatment Plan and the allocation of the Young People's Pooled Budget

Data Manager - To be responsible for the development and implementation of data management systems across all areas of the DAAT's work and to ensure that data is reported to Government Departments when needed

The Drugs Interventions Programme (DIP) Project Manager - To be responsible for the development of the Criminal Justice Interventions Team locally

Service User Involvement Co-ordinator - To support the development of service user involvement across Croydon drug and alcohol services.

There are a number of groups responsible for delivering/implementing the work of the DAAT.  These include a networking group called the Drug & Alcohol Reference Group (DARG) and focus groups that concentrate on individual themes within the strategy.

There are other groups that feed in to the DAAT structure including the Schools Working Group, Youth Drug Workers Forum, Needle Exchange Group, Shared Care with GPs Group, Drugs Interventions Programme Steering Group, Drug Treatment and Testing Order Steering Group, Croydon Action on Training, Service User Steering Group and Dual Diagnosis Steering Group. This list is not exhaustive and further short life working groups are established to meet particular needs.