European Prevention Curriculum

The European Prevention Curriculum (EUPC) has been developed by a European project ‘UPCAdapt’, co-funded by the European Commission. It was published in 2019 as an EMCDDA Manual. .

The EUPC was designed to provide training to decision-, opinion-, and policymakers (DOPs) about the most effective, modern, evidence-based drug prevention approaches and interventions. In addition, prevention coordinators, prevention specialists and policymakers whose responsibilities relate to prevention, benefit from the curriculum, and it can also be used by heads of nongovernmental organisations involved in prevention. The curriculum, which applies a ‘train-thetrainer’ approach, consists of the EUPC handbook and a variety of materials to support the training courses. .

Through the EUPC initiative, the application and uptake of evidence-based effective prevention interventions are boosted and well-informed choices about funding and implementation priorities at national, regional or local level are facilitated.

Given the paramount role of prevention in national drug strategies and system-level responses to the drugs problem, the EMCDDA also facilitates the adaptation and roll-out of the EUPC in non-EU countries. Within the framework of EMCDDA technical assistance projects, such as the EMCDDA4GE project, the EUPC training is implemented and the EUPC manual is translated and adapted to facilitate training in the participants’ national language, in order to disseminate essential prevention knowledge and support the strengthening of prevention systems that are built upon on an evidencebased approach.