About Us

The first UK national drug strategy was published in 1998.  In 2002 the strategy was updated to incorporate lessons from the previous four years and to place more emphasis on certain areas.  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 drug strategy, Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain (1998) highlighted four key themes.  These are:

1. Young People – to help young people resist drug misuse in order to achieve their full potential in society.

2. Communities – to protect our communities from drug related anti-social and criminal behaviour.

3. Treatment – to enable people with drug problems to overcome them and live healthy crime free lives.

4. Availability – to stifle the availability of illegal drugs on our street

The updated drug strategy, launched in 2002, has retained the same key themes but has placed a greater emphasis on work within the criminal justice system such as the development of the Drugs Intervention Programme.

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.

More recently a national alcohol strategy has also been launched. The implementation of this strategy is also the remit of Croydon DAAT. We are in the process of developing an alcohol strategy specific to Croydon.

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

DAAT Co-ordination Unit

The National Treatment Agency

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 a year to fulfill 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 eight 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 administrative support to all members of the team, take minutes, organise meetings and be responsible for the co-ordination of the DAAT Basic Drugs Awareness Training programme

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.

Drug and Alcohol Team Project Co-ordinator - To lead on development, co-ordination and monitoring of a range of initiatives within the DAAT unit. In particular, these will relate to communities and availabilities section of National Drug Strategy.

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 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 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 Reference Group and focus groups that concentrate on individual themes within the strategy.

The structure chart below highlights the various key local groups. If you would like further information please contact DAAT office manager at the DAAT Co-ordination Unit on 020 8726 7750.

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.