This is the first report from an ongoing evaluation of two of Blue Cross Norway’s in-itiatives: the street-level initiatives and the rehabilitation initiative Step by Step. This evaluation started in 2018 and will end in 2020. The two initiatives aim to reach out to people in two different situations: the street-level initiatives are mainly low threshold cafes, which serve food and offer care to people with drug problems, aiming to contribute to a better quality of life and motivation for change, but not necessarily to a drug free life. The Step by Step program is aimed to help people who have stopped using drugs, with an explicit goal of providing follow-up to help them live and man-age a drug-free life.
The evaluation addresses two key questions:
1. How do Blue Cross Norway’s two initiatives help promote social inclusion and bet-ter life coping skills for people with drug problems?
2. What do Blue Cross Norway’s two initiatives add to the public services provided for people with drug problems?
Three reports will be published from the evaluation. This first report is aimed at clar-ifying the content of these two initiatives, how they are organised and what they offer to their guests and participants. In addition, we analyse the need for these two initi-atives in light of a reviewof public documents, statistics and research related to social inclusion and quality of life for people with drug problems.
