Family: the Challenge of Prevention of Drug Use

Everyone more and more acknowledges the importance of the family involvement in primary prevention of drug addiction. Families and society face challenges imposed both by new economic, cultural and social realities, and by the demands of a society in constant evolution and transformation, where all is questioned and discussed. Parents, educators and children are confronted with new and different situations, for which they do not have answers, due to their own incapacity or to the lack of references, models or orientations. This is the source of the hardship adapting to new ways of perceiving and living life.This book is a review of family prevention programs carried out in five European countries (Austria, Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain). This work reinforces IREFREA’s commitment to studying and understanding the role played by family in regards to drug consumption. The knowledge and the evaluation of the different family prevention programs reviewed we hope will help to understand strategies to prevent drug use/abuse, the active involvement of all members of the family in the process and the applicability of prevention programmes at different moments of the family life cycle.