DUSHANBE, July 28, 2016, Asia-Plus -- Two experts from German organizations “Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe“ and “Vista GmbH” have provided a second training on dealing with people who use drugs for the national working group consisting of representatives from NGOs working with problem drug users, Republican Clinical Center of Narcology and Tajik National University (Department of Social Work).

According to the Delegation of the European Union to Tajikistan, this training session is supported within the sixth phase of the EU-funded Central Asia Drug Action Programme (CADAP-6) implemented by the Consortium from the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Poland and Germany.

CADAP-6 is the latest step in the EU''s long-term engagement with Central Asian partners to help further strengthen their national policies in drug demand reduction.

During the training, participants discussed additional use of legal and illegal substances in the opioid substitution therapy (OST) program – individual and social factors of influence; harm reduction in polysubstance use and work on the reduction of the use of "catching up" in the context of social and psychological assistance to OST.

The EU trainers presented programs for consumption reduction and discussed with participants whether these aspects are applicable in the street outreach work.

Local experts will participate in the series of seminars in 2016-2017 and upon their completion they will receive certificates of the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences.  Local experts will replicate trainings to local specialists to further improve standards of social work for opioid drug users in accordance with the EU best practices.