Final Evaluation Report of Capacity Building for Effective Implementation of UPC Core Course in NDDCB Preventive Staff, Sri Lanka
The National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB) Act No. 13 of 1984 is an established government agency for the solution of the drug problem in Sri Lanka.
It's functions include prevention, education and training, drug treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts, scientific and sociological research in the field of substance abuse, management of private treatment centers, and management of precursor chemicals.
In the field of substance abuse, drug prevention is the practice of stopping or delaying the first use of a drug as soon as possible before it can be started or developed a substance use disorder by a person who has started using it.
The staff involved in this task, work in the Prevention, Education and Training Division of the Board and in the Outreach Services Division. Despite a staff of thirty-seven years of experience, the weaknesses in result-oriented were increasing day by day due to the inability to engage in proven preventive educational work on a scientifically sound basis with proper training methods.
A successful solution to this has come to us very recently. That opportunity arose from Dr. Joe, who is in charge of the Department of Preventive Education at Colombo Plan. The opportunity to join the UPC CO Pilot course, which is taught through the Internet, as a self-learning methodology developed by HealtheKnowledge under the auspices of ISSUP.
It was then decided to launch the course in Sri Lanka, with the first step being to provide six days of physical training and 20 hours of hands-on training, excluding a team of 25 in preventive education and coaching staff.
The training was physically conducted at NDDCB Auditorium on 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th February 2022 and the training related to the final dissertation was held on 2nd March.
