German headquarters for addiction issues
| German Central Office for Addiction Issues (DHS) |
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| legal form | registered association |
| founding | 1947 |
| Seat | Hamm |
| main emphasis | Addiction help, addiction prevention |
| Website | www.dhs.de |
The German Central Office for Addiction Issues (DHS) is the amalgamation of the associations active in addiction help and addiction prevention from self-help, counseling and treatment in Germany. This makes the DHS the central umbrella organization in addiction help as well as in the field of addiction prevention, education about addictive substances and forms of addiction.
The main tasks of the DHS combine central questions of addiction help, addiction prevention and drug policy . Important cooperation partners of DHS include ministries, pension and health insurances as well as health associations, among which the German Cancer Aid Foundation has been one of the most active for many years. DHS contacts can be found in practice and research as well as in national and international politics and in all areas of health and social services. The Deutsche Hauptstelle für Suchtfragen eV is financed as a non-profit association with funds from the federal budget, pension and health insurances, membership fees and donations.
goals and tasks
The DHS deals with all issues relating to alcohol, nicotine, drugs with addictive potential, illegal drugs and non-substance-related behavioral disorders such as eating disorders and pathological gambling.
The main tasks of the DHS include:
public relation
The DHS informs and advises those affected, interested parties, journalists and those working in addiction help with regard to addiction-related problems and draws attention to help offers. Current questions and problems in the field of addiction are processed and published in a target group-oriented manner.
Prevention
Addiction prevention is a central field of work of DHS and its member associations. Meaningful strategies, effective measures and sustainable progress in prevention work are therefore high on the DHS agenda. To implement this goal, DHS implements, among other things, cooperation projects with statutory health insurance companies, such as the regular "Alcohol Action Week".
Setting and topic-related information offers
The DHS provides extensive information media in printed or digital form for its target groups. Experts from different subject areas take up key questions and provide their addressees with up-to-date and comprehensive information. The DHS media offer can be ordered free of charge on the Internet.
Support of addiction self-help
Self-help in the area of addiction helps those affected by those affected, before, during and after professional therapeutic and medical help - and independently of it. To support self-help, the DHS provides information and application documents and holds regular addiction self-help conferences.
Events, meetings, congresses
In addition to the annual SUCHT conference, the DHS alternates between a scientific symposium, a cross-association addiction self-help conference and a cooperation conference with a related field of work. In addition, topic-specific specialist days are held.
Promotion and coordination of the professional work of the associations active in addiction aid nationwide
Working groups and committees take up fundamental and current addiction-related questions. They prepare analyzes, statements and memoranda.
Stimulation, promotion, implementation and publication of scientific research work
Together with the Scientific Board of Trustees, DHS is the engine and contact point for scientific work on the subject of addiction.
The associations are responsible for creating and managing support facilities for those at risk of addiction and those suffering from addiction. The DHS also cooperates with other associations for addiction aid, regardless of their membership in the DHS. Close cooperation with the federal working group of state agencies against the dangers of addiction guarantees cooperation with institutions at state level.
Organization and structure
The German headquarters for addiction issues consists of
- the board,
- the office,
- the members (associations of voluntary welfare, abstinence and self-help associations, professional associations, public bodies, cooperating organizations),
- the state offices,
- the technical committees,
- the scientific board of trustees.
The office is both a specialist and coordination office. It serves as a contact point for everyone who deals with topics of addiction prevention, counseling, treatment and self-help or who are interested in cooperation. In addition, the office coordinates the interests of the member associations and represents the interests of addict assistance to the federal government, the federal authorities and the nationwide associations of pension and health insurance companies.
DHS specialist committees take up fundamental and current problems of addiction, addiction support and addiction prevention and work out proposed solutions that offer reliable guidance. They give fundamental impulses for further developments and standards of addiction help and addiction prevention. The DHS Scientific Board of Trustees has the task of continuously advising DHS, promoting and accompanying its work and, in particular, encouraging and helping to shape the relevant scientific work. New tasks that arise due to current problem areas and the further development of specialist content and are of nationwide interest are processed by DHS in projects.
A sponsoring association supports the association's work.
Fields of work and focus
DHS works on a variety of fields of work that contain information and offers of help for people with substance-related and behavioral disorders. In addition, the DHS repeatedly issues current statements on relevant topics, most recently the position paper “No alcohol under 18” (01/2016) and “Cannabis policy in Germany. Review measures, achieve goals. ”(09/2015). DHS is also in professional exchange with European partner organizations. It cooperates, for example, with committees and departments of the European Union that deal with addiction-relevant topics as well as with clubs and associations at international level that have taken on the same or similar tasks as the DHS. A particular focus is on developing effective strategies to reduce the health and social consequences of alcohol and illegal drugs.
Publications and campaigns
The DHS publishes extensive information material, brochures and other publications on various aspects of addiction and offers corresponding help. It is about addictive substances, drug consumption, substance-related disorders, addiction, advice and treatment offers and self-help. The DHS also publishes specialist publications for professional and voluntary work in the field of addiction and related fields of activity, such as the health, youth or social sectors.
The DHS “Yearbook Addiction”, which is published regularly, serves as a reference work for facts and figures as well as an information pool on new developments and current topics in the field of work and politics “Addiction”. The current “Yearbook Addiction 2016” summarizes the latest statistics on the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals as well as gambling and addictive substances in road traffic. Among other things, it provides information on the rehabilitation of addicts, presents the current topic of "Free trade agreements and tobacco control - an interim balance sheet" and provides a comprehensive directory of German and European institutions in the field of addiction. With changing campaigns and initiatives on topics of addiction prevention, addiction support and addiction self-help, the DHS addresses the public.
Alcohol consumption and cancer
In October 2019, the Breast Cancer Month, the German Central Office for Addiction Issues and German Cancer Aid jointly appealed to women for the first time to take the “dangerous relationship between cancer and alcohol” very seriously. While the dangers of smoking as a risk factor for cancer are widely known, it is overlooked that alcohol is a cell poison "that can damage almost all body cells and organs". Regular consumption increases the risk of various cancers, including breast cancer. The German Central Office for Addiction Issues recommended women not to drink more than an eighth liter of wine or 0.3 liters of beer per day. This corresponds to an amount of 12 grams of pure alcohol. Men should not consume more than double the amount and at the same time have at least two to three alcohol-free days per week.
Action week alcohol
The German Cancer Aid Foundation participated in the nationwide Action Week 2019 with the prevention guide it published for men: “Risky partnership. More health - less alcohol ". As early as 2016, the International Men's Day was the occasion for DHS and Cancer Aid to jointly call for a nationwide permanent information campaign about the effects of alcohol consumption in men on a variety of cancers. This targeted joint campaign takes place every two years in May. The prevention campaign is based on voluntariness, civic engagement and self-help: members of self-help groups, experts from counseling centers, specialist clinics and from addiction prevention, doctors, pharmacists and people who are active in associations and churches, address the public and organize campaigns in many places to alcohol consumption. They provide information about alcohol and encourage you to think about your own alcohol consumption. The DHS has also implemented effective campaigns with changing cooperation partners in the areas of “abuse and dependency in old age”, “addiction in the workplace” and “drug addiction”. The information material it offers is supplemented by specialist publications on the common disease of cancer, which can be requested free of charge from Deutsche Krebshilfe (Bonn).
History of the DHS
Almost immediately after the Second World War (1947), the “Main Working Group for the Defense against Addiction Risks (HAG)” was formed with the aim of giving organizations for addiction prevention and addiction aid an institutional umbrella. A few years later (1955) the HAG is included in the register of associations under the name “German headquarters against addiction risks”. The association is made up of associations and institutions that are dedicated to caring for those at risk from alcohol and alcoholism and to averting addiction dangers and has set itself the task of representing the interests of its members and promoting the work of the member associations. Over time, the DHS also opens up to associations and organizations whose main tasks are research and prevention as well as the treatment of addiction and non-substance-related behavioral disorders such as pathological gambling. The Scientific Board of Trustees is added, which advises the DHS and creates the necessary scientific prerequisites for its work. Today, DHS also works with federal authorities, social security agencies and other central institutions, realizes international cooperation projects and has made public relations another core task.
Library
The DHS library is the most comprehensive German-language specialist library on addiction issues. Approximately 40,000 monographs, journal articles, university publications and so-called gray literature are currently documented (publication period from 1885). The titles are indexed both formally and in terms of content using keywords, around 60 percent of the documents have so far been provided with short contents, so-called abstracts. Except for a few reference titles, the library holdings can be borrowed. Visiting appointments are possible at any time for library users by arrangement. Free literature searches are also carried out on request. The complete database of the entire library inventory can be accessed on the Internet and is available for individual research.
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.dhs-foerderverein.de
- ↑ https://www.krebshilfe.de/informieren/presse/pressemitteilungen/mit-weniger-alkohol-brustkrebsris-senken/ , accessed on October 11, 2019
- ↑ https://www.krebshilfe.de/informieren/presse/pressemitteilungen/aktionswoche-alkohol-2017/ , accessed on May 17, 2017
- ↑ https://www.krebshilfe.de/informieren/presse/pressemitteilungen/aktuelle-meldung/mit-weniger-alkohol-das-krebsris-senken/ , accessed May 2019