Department of Health Prevention and Education Funding Programme

New Extended Deadline - 18 November 2022

The department is advertising a call for applications to a new funding programme which has been designed to strengthen the prevention of drug, alcohol and tobacco use and the associated harms among children and young people.

This funding programme will be open to Drug and Alcohol Taskforces, HSE/Community Healthcare Organisations (CHOs), the community and voluntary sector, and academic bodies.

Recording of Programme Launch

A Gender Perspective

We are encouraging proposals that incorporate a gender perspective.

To date, drug prevention programmes have rarely been designed to be gender sensitive or specific to girls or women. This gender-blind approach suggests that programme designers do not consider that gender norms start influencing drug related risks, drug intake and its outcomes from the early developmental stages of childhood and adolescence. However, we do know that gender norms do play a central role in defining acceptable and unacceptable behaviours for men and women.

The gender gap in the social use of drugs is narrowing, especially among young people, for certain products and patterns of use in many countries. This context and the continued structural inequalities between genders call for more adapted and fine-tuned prevention responses, especially for youth. Gender-sensitive forms need to be developed within the scope of universal, selective and indicated prevention, on the basis of evidence-based knowledge in respect to efficacious interventions, protective factors and risk factors.

Documents