Drug Action Teams

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Setting goals

In most areas, the development of a JCG will be a compromise between the ideology of pure needs assessment and the drive to address certain pressures.

However, there are certain basic pieces of information that underpin progress. Collection and discussion of these could form an initial schedule of work for a JCG.

A selection of possible goals, some practical and some relating to the cultures of the agencies involved, are outlined below.

Possible Schedule of Work

Members could be asked to collect information on certain topics and bring them to a meeting for further discussion. Relevant topics include:

• current services (and gaps)
• current expenditure
• planning cycles
• legal and financial limitations (and possible future changes)
• review of stated priorities (single and multi-agency)
• clarity of terminology and definitions used
• comparison of the implications for agencies

The final two points on the list are clearly open to some discussion, but the overall aim should be to line up agency priorities and consider how, for example, a public health initiative can create a community safety output, or how a primary prevention scheme interfaces with the activity of the youth offending team.