Triple R was a 2-year long EU project based on the exchange of the best practice in the field of recovery between EU member states completed in 2017. The project was created and implemented with the aim of reducing recidivism and crime in regard to drug addiction and spreading the cost effective and productive models on drug Rehabilitation, social Reintegration and Reinsertion of people with sustance use disorders.
Objectives
Triple R: Rehabilitation for Recovery and Reinsertion, co-funded by the European Union, its goals:
– Exchange best practice in the field of recovery between EU member states
– Reduce recidivism and crime linked to drug addiction
– Provide cost effective and efficient models on drug rehabilitation, social reintegration and justice intervention and which will investigate novel models and alternative measures to imprisonment for drug addicts
– Disseminate resources across EU member states to support the implementation of effective and efficient models in Rehabilitation for Recovery and Reinsertion
Partners of the project
• Coordinator: Comunità San Patrignano (Italy)
• Co-beneficiaries:
1. BASTA (Sweden)
2. CeIS – Associazione Centro Italiano di Solidarietà Don Mario Picchi (Italy)
3. ASOCIACION DIANOVA ESPANA (Spain)
4. POPOVGGZ VZW – Best practice on pillar justice (Belgium)
5. UDRUGA STIJENA – NGO (Croatia)
6. UDRUGA SAN PATRIGNANO SPLIT (Croatia)
7. UDRUGA INSTITUT PULA (Croatia)
8. ECAD – European Cities against drugs (Sweden)
Activities
All the workstreams were created in a logical and consequential way, along the three thematic pillars of rehabilitation, social reintegration and justice interventions: management and coordination, best practice exchanges, study visits and training opportunities, leading to the drafting and publication of a manual on rehabilitation, guidelines on social reinsertion and guidelines on justice interventions. The manual and the guidelines produced by the project were used to promote further knowledge on the EU and international level on rehabilitation models of interventions, starting from the best practices offered by the Therapeutic Communities involved in the project, including their referral and reinsertion networks.
Furthermore, the guidelines along with learning, training and tutoring were implemented in the pilot project in Croatia, to test replication of treatment, therapeutic community, social reinsertion programmes and alternative sentencing in the context of the newest EU member. The involvement of Croatian NGOs (NGO Stjiena, NGO Udruga, NGO Institute) were crucial in the feasibility study and in the implementation of the piloting phase, as well as in networking with other therapeutic communities (TC) experiences and disseminating project findings at a national level.
The final evaluation phase of the project assessed the development of the project and evaluated the project results.The dissemination of the manual, guidelines and project results led to a seminar in Brussels, a side event in Vienna at the CND and to the final conference in Croatia. The events were crucial to disseminate knowledge and resources from the project to European and International institutions, member state policy makers and national experts to enable national implementation and follow-up, both with EU Member States and potential candidate countries.
Type and number of people benefiting from the project
1) Socio-rehabilitative practitioners working in therapeutic communities and NGOs who are in the drug field from European Member States, in particular partners’ staff, who are in a position to add value and exchange best practice with practitioners and policy makers in other EU member states.
2) Researchers who can independently assess the effectiveness of the interventions and who can make recommendations for the future
3) EU wide networks who are in a position to disseminate the findings from the project to other EU member states and to relevant policy makers across Europe
4) Policy makers in EU member states who have the influence to ensure that evidence based interventions are implemented at a national level
5) People and families encountering drug addiction will be indirectly supported by this project through the implementation of best practice in the field of drug demand reduction
Achieved results
– exchange of best practice in the field of treatment, reintegration and alternative sentencing aimed at total recovery;
– expansion of knowledge base on total recovery;
– increase the know-how level among partners’ staff through high level learning activities;
– demonstrate the feasibility of implementing total recovery models in other contexts, through the pilot project in Croatia;
– start-up of new (or developed) realities in Croatia, with the increasing in the availability and coverage of rehabilitation settings, in line with the EU Drugs Strategy;
– disseminate know-how on alternative sentencing options and legislations and on recovery as source of crime prevention;
– distribute educational tools and a video on how total recovery settings work and how they are organized.
Type and number of outputs/publication/produced
• Manual on drug rehabilitation and recovery
• Handbook on justice interventions and alternatives to incarceration for drug abuse offenders
• Handbook on social reintegration of recovered drug users
• Evaluation report on Recovery
• Evaluation report on Justice Intervention
• Triple R Booklet – Executive Summary and guidelines on recovery, reintegration and social justice intervention
• Evaluation report on Social reintegration