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GXC 2025 Online Virtual Conference - Mental Health Without Borders

Lessons from the Front Lines: Reflections from the UK’s Former Drug Czar on Rebuilding Recovery Systems

Mike Trace 🇬🇧
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Description

This session offers an insider’s perspective on the UK’s approach to substance use treatment and recovery. It will provide an accessible history of government policies and explore how strategic objectives, funding streams, and outcomes shape the national treatment and recovery system. Participants will gain a practical understanding of how policy decisions influence service delivery, using the UK prison service as a case study to illustrate the risks of misaligned objectives and funding. This presentation will highlight the critical importance of strategic clarity in designing effective interventions, equipping professionals with a framework to link policy objectives with practical service delivery.

Educational Goal

This presentation will enhance participants’ ability to critically analyze the relationship between policy objectives, funding structures, and service delivery in the UK treatment and recovery system. Attendees will strengthen their professional capacity to apply strategic clarity when designing and evaluating interventions, leading to more effective and sustainable clinical and organizational practices.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

  • Describe a simple history of UK government policy on treatment and recovery interventions for substance use disorders.

  • Identify the strategic objectives, funding streams, and outcomes of the UK treatment and recovery system.

  • Discuss the importance of strategic clarity in this field, using the UK prison service as an example of the risk of mismatched objectives and funding streams.

Presenters

Mike Trace 🇬🇧
Mike Trace has a wide range of experience in the field of drug and alcohol treatment and policy, from direct work with people who use drugs, to senior positions in national government and international agencies. Following a period of 12 years working in and managing projects that provided care and support to the homeless, drug users and offenders, Mike was offered the post of Deputy UK Anti-Drug Co-ordinator (National Drug Czar) in 1997, and held this post until 2002. From 2000 to 2003, he was the Chairman of the European Union drugs agency, the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), and from 2002 to 2003, also held the post of Chief of the Demand Reduction Section at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna. Since leaving his United Nations post, Mike has returned to the UK, and the non-governmental sector. He has combined two leadership roles in the field of drug policy and drug dependence treatment: as Chief Executive of the Forward Trust (www.forwardtrust.org.uk), a large national charity providing care and rehabilitation services to offenders and those struggling with addiction. as Founder and Chairman of the International Drug Policy Consortium (www.idpc.net ), a global network of NGOs with an interest in the promotion of humane and effective drug policies. Mike continues to advise policy makers around the world on social and penal policy.

Financially Sponsored By

  • GXC Events - The Global Exchange Conference