From June 27th to July 8th, a Summer School organized by the Institute for Addiction Research (ISFF) took place at Frankfurt UAS. More than 20 students of social work, trained social workers and doctors from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan had the opportunity to gain exciting insights into theory and practice of social work and social institutions in Germany in the context of drug use and drug help, to discuss these and to contribute their own perspectives. The programme included seminars, workshops, discussion rounds on the topic of "social work in the field of drugs", exciting visits to local institutions (drug consumption room Niddastraße, OSSIP guided tour through Frankfurt's main train station district, Maincheck, Doña Carmen) as well as short documentary films produced by the ISFF on different areas of social work in the field of drugs and addiction. As a crowning finale, the participants presented the results of their group work developed during the two weeks. All participants had an exceptionally intensive time at the FRA-UAS, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive and motivates the ISFF for many more summer schools in the coming years.
The Summer School is part of the SOLID project, which stands for "Social work and strengthening NGOs in development cooperation to treat drug addiction". SOLID is part of the DAAD's Network of Excellence and supports an educational and research exchange between five research institutions from Germany, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and the People's Republic of China. The project focuses on three central research areas and it aims, among other things, to support young researchers in all partner countries in research on these topics:
- Social work and treatment with a special focus on opioid substitution treatment including psychosocial support and counselling,
- Social work and infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis-C and COVID-19
- Social work in prisons and with people imprisoned for using, selling or possessing illicit drugs.
In addition, SOLID aims to sustainably strengthen the role of social work in supporting people who use drugs and suffer from related health problems.
For further information about the SOLID project, please visit http://solid-exceed.org/. If you’d like to get to know more about drug research at Frankfurt UAS click here: https://www.frankfurt-university.de/de/hochschule/fachbereich-4-soziale-arbeit-gesundheit/forschung-am-fb-4/forschungsinstitute/institut-fuer-suchtforschung-isff/
Contact
Prof. Dr. Heino Stöver
Phone: +49 69 1533-2823
Email: hstoever(at)fb4.fra-uas.de