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Effective Interventions Unit
Programme 2004-2005

A. IDENTIFYING AND PROMOTING EFFECTIVE PRACTICE

A1. OUTCOMES AND EVALUATION

Since the EIU's establishment, we have devoted considerable time and resources to promoting the understanding and use of evaluation among service commissioners, planners and providers. We have done this through the series of evaluation guides and then through the funding of workshops run by the consultants, Partners in Evaluation, in all DAAT areas. While the feedback on both guides and the workshops has been positive, our external evaluation has shown that our work has made little or no impact on practice in the field. In 2004-05, we will continue our involvement with the proposal for a national evaluation service and consider other ways to support evaluation practice.

Progress in April 2003-March 2004

• We produced two thematic evaluation guides to support the evaluation of specific services. These were 'Intensive Interventions with Young People', developed in collaboration with the Lloyds TSB Partnership Drugs Initiative (PDI) Programme Manager ( November 2003), and 'Supporting the Families and Carers of Drug Users' ( April 2004).

• In partnership with the Executive's Voluntary Issues Unit, Lloyds TSB Partnership Drugs Initiative, the Communities Fund and other charitable organisations, we co-funded and supported a study to determine the feasibility of establishing a national evaluation service for the voluntary sector. We are now part of the Implementation Group.

Plans for April 2004-March 2005

• We will collaborate with Scottish Drugs Forum to produce an Evaluation Guide tailored to the needs of Family Support Groups. We will continue to develop thematic evaluation guides as appropriate.

• We will continue to work with partners to support the ongoing work to develop a national evaluation service.

• We will offer support for the design of service evaluations.

• In the past year, we have continued to commission major projects from the Drugs Misuse Research Programme. These are described in detail below. The first three years of the Drugs Misuse Research Programme are now at an end. We have been consulting with interested parties in the Executive and across a wide range of agencies to develop the content of the Programme for 2004-07. The new Programme will be published in June 2004.

Progress in April 2003-March 2004

• We continued our programme of research on the prevention of transmission of Hepatitis C. We commissioned an evaluation of a Hepatitis C peer education project called C-Level ( May 2003). We also commissioned an evaluation of the impact of changes in the Lord Advocate's Guidance on the number of needles and syringes that can be issued at one time ( October 2003). We published 'Examining the Injecting Practices of Injecting Drug Users in Scotland' ( February 2004). Following the completion of the Injecting Practices study, we commissioned the second phase of this work: a laboratory based study of safety, risks and outcomes from the use of different forms of injecting paraphernalia among injecting drug users. We held an event to disseminate the results of the Injecting Practices study in March 2004.

• We also published the final report of one of the studies funded under the research competition run in Autumn 2001: 'Measuring staff attitudes to people with drug problems' ( August 2003).

• We continued to manage the major evaluations of the Scottish Prison Service's Transitional Care programme and selected young people's projects funded by the Lloyds TSB Foundation Partnership Drugs Initiative.

• We commissioned research on the provision of services for people with co-existing mental health and substance misuse problems in November 2003.

• We undertook a review of the literature on the effectiveness of residential rehabilitation and detoxification services for drug users. The findings were used to inform the review of treatment and rehabilitation services being undertaken by the Scottish Executive Substance Misuse Division.

• We commenced further work on local drug markets in three case study areas in Scotland, which is currently ongoing. So far, this has involved interviewing police officers and drug service providers.

• We commissioned in December 2003, a National Investigation into Drug-related Deaths which will aim to make recommendations for policy and practice to reduce the incidence of drug-related deaths in future.

• We carried out interviews with drug workers and specialist counselling staff in a small number of agencies across Scotland to inform our future research on psycho-social interventions for drug misuse.

• We continue to support the Robertson Trust Research Programme being conducted by the Centre for Drugs Misuse Research at Glasgow University through a Scottish Executive Advisory Group. The main project under this programme, Drug Outcomes Research in Scotland (DORIS), is a longitudinal study following up a large cohort of drug users over a period of years. The second round of follow-up interviews with this cohort has recently been completed.

• We continue to contribute to the three year funding given by the Scottish Executive to help support the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime conducted by Edinburgh University. This will continue to provide specific reports on findings related to the development of substance misuse among this cohort of young people. Forthcoming reports include a report on the 'relationship and interdependence between the use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs'.

• We continue to maintain links with other UK research funders to ensure that the research programme is informed by and contributes to the developing UK-wide drugs research evidence base. We contribute to the UK Research and Information Working Group (RIWG) which brings together researchers from UK and Irish government departments and devolved administrations. We also contribute to advisory groups for specific research studies funded by the Information and Statistics Division, NHS Scotland.

• Plans for April 2004-March 2005

• We will publish the interim research report of the evaluation of Lloyds TSB PDI projects in April 2004. The report 'Working with Young People' gives profiles of 17 projects. The next phase of the evaluation will be a longer-term evaluation of a small number of case study projects. The evaluation will include both process and outcome elements.

• We will publish 'Reducing the impact of local drug markets: A research review' in April 2004. We will commission further work on drug markets including the interviewing of drug users and members of the wider community in case study areas.

• Other reports due to be published in 2004-05 are:

  Interim findings from the Prison Transitional Care evaluation ( April, June and November 2004)

  A review of residential detoxification and rehabilitation services for drug users in Scotland ( June 2004)

  An exploration of the role of substance misuse nurses in Scotland ( July 2004)

  Evaluation of C-Level peer education intervention ( October 2004)

  Evaluation of new intervention for Neo-natal Abstinence Syndrome and visual impairment in infants of substance misusing mothers ( November 2004)

  National Investigation into drug-related deaths ( December 2004)

  Evaluation of the impact of the change in the Lord Advocate's Guidance on needle and syringe exchange ( February 2005)

• Research into service provision for people with co-morbid mental health and substance use problems in Scotland ( March 2005)

• Many of the long-term research studies we have commissioned, such as the evaluations of Prison Transitional Care programme and the Lloyds TSB Foundation Partnership Drugs Initiative, and research competition projects, will continue throughout 2004-05.

• We will hold a second dissemination seminar on the research relating to Hepatitis C prevention in June 2004.

• We will continue to support the monitoring and evaluation of the pilot psychostimulant service set up in Aberdeen (the 'Incite' project). The pilot service is now operating and an external evaluation will be commissioned in June 2004.

• We will continue to provide support to the process evaluation of new Community Addiction Teams in Glasgow which integrate health and social work addiction services. The evaluation is due to finish in February 2005.

• The study of the safety, risks and outcomes from the use of injecting paraphernalia, funded through the research competition in August 2001, will report in February 2006.

• We will commission or co-fund further research on

• - counselling and other psycho-social interventions
  - the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of residential rehabilitation
  - effectiveness of buprenorphine.

• We will scope requirements for future research into

• - drug markets
  - amilies affected by problem drug use (in particular, drug misusing parents and their children)

• The Robertson Trust Research Programme will be ongoing over 2004-06. The Scottish Executive has agreed to contribute to the future funding of this work.

• This ongoing and planned research is also discussed in the following sections under the appropriate thematic headings and a full summary of all this work is at Appendices D -F.

Progress in April 2004 to March 2005

• We have continued to disseminate our publications to a wide audience - DAATs, NHS Boards and Trusts, Local Authorities, including Social Work and Education Departments, drug services in the statutory and voluntary sectors, agencies in the education, training and employment sectors, Prisons, Police, Social Inclusion Partnerships, research bodies and UK bodies.

• The external evaluation of the impact of the EIU ( January 2004), showed that the Unit's work is well-regarded for its quality and accessibility. Our outputs are used in a variety of ways including as learning tools, catalysts for reviews of practice, as the basis for multi-agency reviews and as design templates. The evaluation offers a number of ideas for increasing the impact of EIU outputs and, in particular, it supports the idea of facilitation and support

• In collaboration with ISD, we have continued to develop the web pages. In August 2003, we added a page about our seminars including copies of presentations where available and the feedback. New research web pages were added to the site in January 2004. Between October and November 2003, we put on a pop-up questionnaire concerning the possible use of CD Roms for our publications. The outcome was that there was not enough interest at the moment. The web pages had an average of 9500 hits per month last year.

• We held 8 seminars and consultation workshops, including 2 local, joint workshops, in the course of last year

• Members of the EIU team have reviewed the Unit's dissemination policy with a view to heightening awareness of our work in areas where there has been a lower level of engagement. We also explored ways of developing the use of the display stand and the publications material. The display material has been updated and revamped.

Plans for April 2004-March 2005

• We will continue to seek opportunities to take the EIU stand and publications to local events to ensure that our material is available to as wide an audience as possible. We are keen to hear from any agency who would like to have stand available at local events. The contact is EIU@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or 0131 244 5117.

• We will continue to develop the web pages and we would welcome comments and suggestions.

• We will continue to hold seminars and workshops during 2004-05. Topics are likely to include injecting practices, needs assessment, Integrated Care Pathways Guides and advocacy. In addition we will be seeking opportunities to collaborate on locally based workshops.

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