Collaboration with Government Ministries

HHD has provided consultations to a number of government ministries in the region including Ministries of Health and Education in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand. For example, in Thailand HHD has developed a formal Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Public Health to strengthen the capacity of the country’s health promotion programs, particularly in the areas of HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, and life skills education. The goal of this initiative is to help the Ministry develop a system of training and technical assistance delivery for Thai health professionals based on the most recent evidence of what works. Specific activities include:

• Providing consultation toward the development of coordinated school health programs
  
  
• Serving as an expert adviser on the application of technology including web site development as a means to improve service delivery for both practitioners as well as children and their families
  
  
• Arranging a study tour for senior members of the Ministry to our headquarters in the United States to observe first-hand the ways in which we are currently managing five large national centers for professional development on behalf of the US government

We have also developed collaboratively a number of proposals to both government and private donors including a proposal for a project with CDC Global AIDS Program in Thailand to adapt an HIV/AIDS life skills curriculum for use with out-of-school youth, as well as to improve the country’s current program to provide counseling to young people at high risk for HIV/AIDS and substance abuse.

Consultation to United Nations Agencies in Southeast Asia

We also provide consultation to several UN agencies in the region, including the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

For UNICEF, we have participated in a number of meetings and workshops that have focused on the relationship between drug use and HIV/AIDS transmission. We have provided technical assistance to UNICEF in the development of a youth track for the April 2003 International Conference on Harm Reduction held in Chiang Mai. Following the conference, we prepared a report for UNICEF entitled UNICEF Country Consultations on Young People, Drugs, and Substances, that gives recommendations on how the agency can better address the needs of young people in the areas of HIV/AIDS and substance abuse.

For UNODC (formerly UNDCP), we have provided trainings on comprehensive frameworks for effective prevention and health promotion programs, as well as seminars on developing effective social marketing health communications campaigns.

We also conducted a project that assessed risk and protective factors for drug use in several countries in the region (including China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand). This assessment served as the basis for developing a comprehensive framework to guide substance abuse intervention and treatment programs at the national and local levels. HHD is working with UNODC to develop a training manual and pilot a train-the-trainers seminar, so that individuals can be provided with the skills to make this information widely available throughout the region.