About us

 

Mission and Core Philosophy

Our goal is to support the establishment of favorable conditions for the well-being of young people in Bulgaria. The focus of our activities falls on primary drug-prevention as an essential constituent of health promotion, the following principles outlining the core philosophy of the DPSP foundation:

• There are not only physical, but also psychological, social and other prerequisites and factors that determine human health. Therefore, we base our activities among young people on person-oriented and non-judgmental approaches;
• The active involvement of the target group is crucial. Drug-prevention activities are more efficient when designed in such a way as to stimulate the social and democratic functioning of young people.
• It is our priority to apply holistic approaches to drug-prevention encouraging the active participation of parents, teachers, professionals, media and local policy and decision-makers;
• In order to be effective, drug-prevention initiatives should be planned and implemented in a systematic and coherent manner and with a long-term vision;
• Following the national and the international trends and developments in the field, local specificities and socio-economic characteristics play a major role in effective health promotion.

Our aims are:

• Designing and implementation of health promotion and primary drug-prevention activities on school and on municipal level;
• Elaboration and implementation of educational programs for drug prevention and health promotion through social skills training;
• Development of health promotion materials for students, teachers, parents, non-teaching school staff;
• Establishment of support networks in the field of health promotion among young people;
• Training of school staff on health promotion approaches and activities on school level;
• Consultancy and support to local policy-makers and experts in the field.

Community programme for drug prevention is built up on the understanding that the effective prevention programmes take into account local specific socio-economic and cultural environment. The activities on local level are targeted at fostering the prevention-policies and activities on school level and at raising public awareness of local communities:
- the establishment of support structures of experts on local level,
- work with parents, bar-owners
- work with media, media campaigns
- networking
- raising awareness of local communities
.
Curricular school-based health education programme is based on the understanding that Health Education is not only concerned with the communication of information, but also with fostering the motivation, skills and confidence (self-efficacy) necessary to take action to improve health.It consists of:

Sample-model of extra-curricular activities, aimed at the establishment of a favourable social climate in the pilot schools, health-promoting environment, strong and effective communication between the main stakeholders in school (e.g. students, teachers, non-teaching school staff, parents, school’s governing body) etc.

School curriculum in Health Education, incorporating classes in Health Education for secondary-school students. In order to facilitate the implementation of the developed sample-model materials for teachers (teacher manual, lesson plans, worksheets, matrix of the programme) and workbooks for students for each grade are provided

Download Presentation of DPSP Foundation in Power Point.