The Queensland Mental Health Commission (QMHC) is seeking proposals that aim to deliver community-based or led alcohol and other drugs (AOD) primary prevention initiatives.

The initiative must contribute to one or more of the objectives listed below:

• build the evidence for effective approaches to AOD primary prevention
• reduce stigma, discrimination and improve community attitudes towards people who use drugs
• strengthen AOD literacy to improve community awareness, attitudes and behaviours
• embed culturally appropriate primary prevention approaches to responding to AOD-related issues
• increase use of people with lived-living experience in delivering AOD primary prevention initiatives
• enhance community capacity to implement evidence-based AOD primary prevention
• increase community understanding of AOD-related harm and factors that enhance safety.

The proposed initiative must:

• be a primary prevention initiative
• support AOD system reform and align with the strategic intent of Achieving balance
• be supported by evidence
• include a clear evaluation framework/plan
• include communities in the design, delivery and evaluation of the initiative
• develop evidence-based prevention initiatives for broadscale adoption
• consider trialling a program that could be replicated across other regions/settings

About this initiative

Most people who drink alcohol and/or use legal or illegal drugs will not experience any significant harm from their use. Many people who use alcohol and other drugs do so in a way that doesn’t affect their day to day lives. However, some people do experience preventable harms.

In the context of this initiative, community prevention engages communities in AOD primary prevention efforts. Community prevention can be tailored to meet the specific needs of a community, address a wide range AOD-related issues relevant to that community, and be delivered in multiple settings by different methods. Community prevention can be community-based or community-led.

• A community-based approach is project-focused and is driven by external people or organisations who have helped a community to identify an area of concern or led activities to address specific community issues.
• A community-led approach involves grassroots projects where the community has identified its own needs and is then supported to respond to those needs. Communities are the main driver of this method.

The focus of this funding opportunity is primary prevention. Primary prevention efforts tend to have an early focus and aim to, as much as possible, prevent harm from ever occurring. They can be delivered universally (e.g. population level approaches) or selectively (e.g. to specific groups of people).

Bringing communities together: A guide on how to prevent alcohol and other drug harm in the community.

The Commission engaged the Alcohol and Drug Foundation (ADF) to develop a guide to support communities to develop evidence based AOD primary prevention initiatives. It includes a range of tools and resources to help identify and prioritise local needs; engage communities; and evaluate the impact of initiatives. The Commission encourages applicants to refer to this resource when preparing an application.