In November 2019, a study on registering ethnicity and migration in the European Treatment Demand Indicator (TDI) registry was published in the Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse.¹ According to international evidence, migrants and ethnic minorities (MEM) are a subpopulation who are both disproportionately affected by drug use and disadvantaged in accessing treatment. However, as the study author notes, data on treatment demand of MEM in Europe are currently limited. The study (a) discusses the importance of recording migration and ethnicity in the TDI along with its risks; (b) analyses current treatment trends from the 2014 national TDI reports; and (c) draws on survey responses from 19 national TDI focal points to identify indicators used and to make recommendations for improvement.

Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre held a seminar on increasing the engagement of Travellers within the addiction services on 13 November 2019.¹ The aim of the seminar was to improve engagement between Travellers and State agencies, present examples of positive work and models of good practice, and identify key recommendations in relation to Travellers and problem drug use in preparation for the review of the current national drugs strategy.

The European Prevention Curriculum (EUPC) is a programme of training, the primary goal of which is ‘to reduce the health, social and economic problems associated with substance use by building international prevention capacity through the expansion of the European professional prevention workforce’ (p. 10).¹ It originated as an American training programme, the Universal Prevention Curriculum (UPC), and underwent a rigorous adaptation process to ensure its suitability for the European context.² The latest output from this work is the EUPC Handbook, published by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).^1,3

On 13 June 2019, a National Drug Prevention and Education Forum was held in Dublin. The forum was the first event organised by the Drug and Alcohol Education Workers Forum (DAEWF), a network of prevention and education workers in Ireland. The network was set up to pursue joint pieces of work in the field and to promote a more integrated and best practice approach to prevention and education in Ireland.

The 10th Conference of the European Society for Prevention Research (EUSPR) was held in Ghent, Belgium, during 16–18 September 2019. EUSPR was established to promote ‘the development of prevention science, and its application to practice so as to promote human health and well-being through high quality research, evidence based interventions, policies and practices’.¹