VAD, Vereniging voor Alcohol- en andere Drugproblemen, hosts ECAT Conference in Brussels.

VAD, the "Association for Alcohol and other Drug problems", and Belgian member organisation of Eurocare, hosted a one day conference of the ECAT Project in the Flemish Parliament in Brussels on 24 October 2008.

ECAT " To Empower the Community in response to Alcohol Threats" is an EC-co-funded project aiming to enhance the effectiveness of local alcohol prevention campaigns, based on: guidelines for local campaigning, built on evidence based practice; local quick scan analysis to describe the local situation on alcohol use, as a starting point to develop local actions and more specifically local alcohol prevention campaigns, and evaluation of the reach and visibility of the local alcohol prevention campaigns.

The ECAT project has developed an accessible and comprehensive method for local analysis and local campaigning to support local communities in identifying priorities for local actions. During the conference, the conceptual frame of the ECAT methodology was presented, and country partners shared their field experiences in their local communities. Participating countries are: the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Italy and Belgium.

The Full Programme is available on the VAD Website: http://www.vad.be/ecat/prog.htm