Prevention, Treatment, and Rehabilitation Section

Launching Friends in Focus in Italy: A Collaborative Community Effort

April 3rd 2025

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) recently developed Friends in Focus, a new youth-based peer-to-peer drug prevention programme that aims to meaningfully involve young people in prevention efforts. It was peer-reviewed by a global group of experts in the field of prevention, together with youth from the UNODC Youth Initiative. Starting in 2025, UNODC is prototyping the new programme by engaging with youths and local stakeholders from various countries. Building on its recent launch of the first pre-pilot conducted in Serbia (Empowering Serbian Youth to Lead in Prevention: First Pre-Pilot Implementation of UNODC’s Friends in Focus), UNODC also initiated the second pre-pilot testing of the new programme in Italy last week. From 25 to 27 March 2025, youths from northern Italy came together to receive a 3-day Training of Trainers workshop in Arco (Trentino), Italy.

Made possible with the support of the government of Italy, this Phase 1 (Training of Trainers) brought together 18 youths eager to learn about Friends in Focus, its content, and facilitation techniques for their own delivery of sessions to their younger peers. Youths from various territories of Trentino, Parma and Lombardia gathered to learn about preventative thinking, understand the risk and protective factors to drug use, and reflect how group dynamics play a role on peer selection processes and peer influence regarding substance use. And through try-out sessions, they also directly experienced their role as future youth facilitators with the preparation and delivery of the mock sessions, giving each other feedback and examining trainer-trainee dynamics.

With the understanding and skills acquired through the three-day training, youth trainers will return to their hometowns to begin their own implementation of Friends in Focus with the support of the national coordinating team and partner organisations that are supporting this pre-pilot phase. In particular, a wide range of partners, including regional governments, municipalities, public welfare entities, non-profit organizations, social cooperative organizations, and local initiatives, came together to embrace the new programme into the region during this pre-pilot, in order to support the youth trainers and peers through the 6 sessions of Friends in Focus and beyond. This unique infrastructure, characterized by a multi-stakeholder approach, exemplifies the value of enhanced inter-regional collaboration and maximized sustainability. Local authorities and community-based organizations are integrating Friends in Focus into their communities, showcasing a commitment to fostering positive change, building resilience among youth, and supporting community development.

The motivation, reflections, and dynamic energy seen through the Training of Trainers demonstrated how participants resonated with the core messages and also discovered how interactive games could be transformed into insightful reflections on real-life scenarios. In addition to the feedback received on the 3-day training, further insights from the youths’ cascade trainings will feed into the enhancement process of the Friends in Focus prototype.

For more information about Friends in Focus, please click on the following: