Case study 'Drugs or work'

Several factors (including substitution programmes and better health care), have contributed to the steady rise in the number of young people addicted to drugs. They belong to a social fringe group who as a result of years of addiction and its impact on their health, employability, social contacts and cognitive abilities, feel little interest in training or an active lifestyle.

Rehabilitation facilities do not as a rule take this process into account. The main aim of rehabilitation programmes is to return the (former) addicts to gainful employment. However, for long-term addicts, their addiction-related circumstances mean that this can no longer be regarded a priority.

The central question is how this subgroup of young drug addicts, facing multiple disadvantages and either already socially marginalised socially or at serious risk of marginalisation, can be persuaded to take an interest in training opportunities that are commensurate with their age and state of development.