IREFREA is a Research Institute which was created in 1988 in Lyon (France). Today it is a European network with 7 permanent offices and different research partners located in 13 European countries; it develops professional partnerships with European experts in the field of youth hardships, drug prevention and drug demand reduction. The main field of activity is: research, primary applied prevention, intervention programmes, theoretical and scientific study of risk factors and training workshops.

2. OBJECTIVES

IREFREA supports the promotion of:

Precocious primary prevention: operating before youth problems appear and become entrenched. This means a development of understanding of risk factors in infancy and adolescence and early intervention programmes.

Global primary prevention: which is able to approach different problems amongst adolescents: drug use, behavioural disorders and signs of maladjustment.

Integrated primary prevention: which acts within educational, recreational, cultural and parental policies.

Studies, intervention and approaches to the problematic of recreational activities of adolescents and young people, specially at weekends.

Harm reduction approaches that do not exclude other preventive interventions, and that are integrated in more global strategies and that have demonstrated its efficacy.

Evaluation and research that should be an essential part of any preventive policy

3. MAIN PROJECTS

Since its foundation, IREFREA has developed intense research activity, the organisation of seminars, the publication of informative material, training workshops, programme evaluation and participation in scientific debates.

Since 1996, IREFREA is concentrated mainly in 3 research topics:

The study of the recreational context, recreational users and the prevention in these areas. Different subjects have been studied in relation to this area: new trends in drugs use, especially synthetic drugs (ecstasy), subcultures, behaviours and use of drugs, the risk associated to these practices, characteristics of users and non users, the cultural mediators in these activities, several reviews of the current preventive practices, etc. In these studies, under the leadership of the Irefrea Spain network, have participated or are participating different European countries of the Irefrea network (Austria, Czech Republic, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and United Kingdom). At the same time similar studies have been developed with the participation of cities of only one country as in Spain with different Spanish cities (Bilbao, Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Santiago de Compostela, Valencia, Vigo, …). Recent publications are available here.

Family prevention is also an important issue for Irefrea. For several years some projects on this subject have been developed with the participation of the network in Austria, France, Spain, Italy and Portugal. The leadership of these projects corresponds to Irefrea Portugal. Some publications are available.

Women and drugs, concerning the characteristics of female identity related to drugs problems, concerning parental problems and the therapeutic approach. Austria, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Portugal participate in this ongoing Project. The leadership corresponds to Irefrea Italy. Publications are available in this web page.