Building Healthier Generations: Kickoff Visit in Miguelturra
This past March, SSDP International joined six partner organisations in Miguelturra (Ciudad Real, Spain) to begin work on Building Healthier Generations (BHG), an Erasmus+ KA220 cooperation project running through August 2028. The consortium brings together Asociación Pokhara (lead partner), the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Centrum prevencie mladeze (Slovakia), Nevo Parudimos (Romania), Kosmicare (Portugal), Ecléctica (Italy) and SSDP International, with the shared aim of developing a unified, evidence-based youth addiction prevention framework across Europe.
The visit centred on EMPU-G, Pokhara's flagship socio-educational prevention model, in operation since 2013. Partners studied the programme's two main strands: Selective Prevention, which works with adolescents and families in situations of social vulnerability, and Indicated Prevention, which engages young people already showing early warning signs of substance use or behavioural addictions. Fieldwork included a visit to Barrio del Carmen in Puertollano, a neighbourhood where the indicated programme operates through street-based outreach, individualised support and sustained family involvement.
The Miguelturra meeting also formalised the project's research backbone. UCLM, led by Aurelio Lascorz and Enrique García, presented the comparative evaluation proposal: a mixed-methods design combining organisational self-assessments against EMCDDA quality standards, open stakeholder surveys, and quasi-experimental questionnaires measuring perceived self-efficacy (BSCQ) and self-reported substance use. Each partner will administer the instruments to fifty participants from their existing programmes, feeding into a unified prevention guide and a digital training toolkit for youth workers.
SSDP International's role spans capacity building, international dissemination (including the final conference in Vienna), and coordinating the third transnational project meeting. Over the coming months, the consortium will move into study visits, youth mobilities, local conferences and the Young Ambassadors of Exchange programme. Quarterly updates will follow.
