Piloting EUPC Training in the Republic of Georgia: Lessons Learned

Background: Georgia is a post-soviet lower middle-income Eastern European country with a young transitional democracy still struggling with Soviet inertia in different domains including drug responses. Till 2019, drug prevention in the country was limited to non-evidence-based fragmented interventions. In 2019, within the frame of the Project ’’EU Action Against Drugs and Organized Crime (EU-ACT) funded by the European Commission the National Drug Prevention Strategy was written and adopted for the first time in the country; in 2020 the corresponding National Action Plan (2021-2026) was elaborated with the support of the Pompidou Group of the Council of Europe; its implementation started in 2021. The same year the EUPC training was offered to the country within the frame of the EMCDDA4Georgia project. By the end of 2022, the EUPC curriculum was translated and formatted and four EUPC trainers were ready to start training delivery and changing the national landscape of drug prevention. In 2023, the EUPC-trained national experts implemented the cascade of EUPC training to 146 DOPs in the different regions of Georgia, within the frame of the Pompidou Group of the Council of Europe field project. 

Methods: The presentation is based on the case analysis of the piloting of EUPC curricula and training in Georgia.

Results: The lessons learned from the implementation of EUPC training for DOPs in Georgia will be discussed during the presentation. Attention will be paid to the barriers to implementation and facilitative factors; what worked, for whom, and how will be reflected. 

Conclusions: Recommendations on implementing EUPC in low and middle-income countries in transition will be shared.