Steering group

Mark Bellis

Mark is the Director of the Centre for Public Health (Liverpool John Moores University), a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Violence Prevention. He heads a team of academics and health professionals undertaking national and international projects addressing alcohol and drug use, violence, sexual behaviour and public health intelligence. He is UK Focal Point on Violence and Injury Prevention to the World Health Organization and a founding member of the WHO Global Violence Prevention Alliance (VPA) He has acted as expert advisor on alcohol and drug use to the Department of Health, WHO, the United Nations and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

Andrew Bennett

Andrew has worked in the field of alcohol, drugs and public health for over 20 years. His current work includes the delivery of young peoples’ interventions, behaviour change training, research; and the development of information materials, training manuals and online resources. Andrew also holds a position at the Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University where he is helping to organise the Club Health Prague conference. Andrew has been involved in nightlife related issues for many years. He has participated in local nightlife strategic planning; developed information campaigns utilizing social marketing approaches; provided training and conducted research. He is old enough to remember Northern Soul.

Amador Calafat

Amador Calafat is a Psychiatrist working in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. He has been actively involved in research and implementation of programmes in risk behaviour and drug prevention since 1980.

He is the coordinator of the European research group IREFREA which conducts cross-national investigation of youth risk behaviour and substance use in nightlife settings. He is also the editor of the journal Adicciones.

Alex Buchell

Alex has worked for 10 Years as a social worker for the youth counseling organisation Streetwork, as coordinator of the Recreational Drug Prevention program. During this work he has been involved in the following projects:

On-site drug-checking, the build-up of a recreational drug-prevention-centre DIZ, the establishment of a drug-prevention-network in Switzerland and Europe and the foundation of the association ‘Safer Clubbing’.

Paul Dillon

Paul Dillon has been working in alcohol and other drug field for over 20 years and has worked in the club health area for much of that time. He has been involved in a wide range of research projects investigating the use of ecstasy, ketamine and GHB and was an investigator on a WHO study examining cocaine use in Australia.

Though his own business, Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia (DARTA) he has been contracted by many organisations to give regular updates on current drug trends. He has also just completed a book “Teenagers, Alcohol and Drugs” which was released in Australia in February 2009.

Uwe C. Fischer

Uwe has been working as coordinator of European and regional research projects concerning evaluation and applied science in the field of public health and drug prevention at the Centre of Educational Research (zepf) of the University of Koblenz-Landau for over 15 years. He has a lecturer position at University of Bamberg for methodology in psychology science and is member of the advisory board for the master study “Health Management” at the University of Koblenz-Landau. He worked also in the research section for epidemiology and evaluation at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Munich (LMU) focusing on alcohol studies. One of the main research topics are community based prevention, health promotion, harm reduction and recreational behaviour.

Karen Hughes

Karen is a Reader in Behavioural Epidemiology at the Centre for Public Health (Liverpool John Moores University). Her work involves original research, evaluations and evidence reviews on issues relating to violence, alcohol and drug use, nightlife tourism and the development of safer night time environments.

She is a member of the WHO Violence Prevention Alliance and is involved in a number of European research collaborations.

Matej Kosir

Matej Kosir graduated in political science at University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). He has worked in the field of alcohol, drugs and addiction prevention for last 13 years. He has worked at the Ministry of Interior, the Government Office for Drugs and the Ministry of Health. In 2006 he established a private institute (Utrip) for research and development of programmes especially in the field of preventing youth risk behaviour. He is involved in several European research and educational projects co-financed by the European Commission. He was also EDDRA (Exchange on Drug Demand Reduction Action) manager and Legal Correspondent for Slovenia in connection with the EMCDDA (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction). He is a project coordinator of the European project “Club Health – Healthy and Safer Nightlife of Youth”, co-financed by the European Commission under the Health Programme 2008-2013.

Chris Luke

Chris is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Cork University Hospital and the Mercy University Hospital, Cork, Ireland. Chris’s special interests include improving the organisation of emergency healthcare and medical education; public health policy; and the healthcare implications of modern urban life – from violence to homelessness, substance and alcohol misuse.

‘Nightclub Medicine’ is a particular interest since he collaborated with Cream, the Liverpool superclub, to successfully enhance the safety of that venue for clubbers. Chris was a founder member of “Club Cork”, a multi-agency course in customer care and safety undertaken in licensed premises throughout Ireland’s second city.

Fernando Mendes

Fernando Mendes is a Clinical Psychologist working in Coimbra, Portugal. He has been actively involved in research and implementation of programmes in drug prevention and risk behavior since 1987.

He is the coordinator of Irefrea Portugal, which conducts cross-national investigation in youth risk behavior and substance use in nightlife settings. He does the coordination and supervision of outreach teams in Azores and Coimbra.

Thérèse Michaelis

Thérèse Michaelis is a Psychologist and an accredited Family Therapist working in Luxembourg. She was working for many years in the field of youth and parent counseling in secondary schools.

She built up the National Addiction Prevention Center CePT and is the Head of it for more than 15 years. In this function/position she has been responsible for and involved in various (national and) European projects in the fields of Health Promotion, Addiction Prevention and Training.

Peer Van Der Kreeft

Mr. Peer van der Kreeft, social educator, is active in drug prevention since 1986, responsible for interventions, campaigns, projects and programmes of De Sleutel, the largest organisation for drug problems in Belgium. He set up life skills drug prevention programmes since 1989 for secondary and primary schools. He published materials from life skills storybooks for young children over manuals on drugs and alcohol strategies in the workplace to Recommendations for Drug Policy on the federal level. Internationally Peer was leading the EU Prevnet Network, “improving prevention through the .net” from 2002 until 2006, the EU-DAP Drug Abuse Prevention group for planning the intervention 2003 ongoing and the EU-DAP Faculty, a TOT network for trainers of teachers. He is involved in training, consult and support for projects in Russia, Romania, Indonesia, Czech Republic, the Middle East . He is an active contributor to networks like the ICAA, the Pompidou group, UNODC, WHO, EMCDDA and Club Health. He is teaching prevention and drug related subjects to the Faculty of Social Work and Welfare Studies at the University College Ghent.

Ninette van Hasselt

Ninette van Hasselt is head of the Youth department at the Trimbos Institute – Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction. Her key role is to coordinate the development and dissemination of research based interventions to regional professionals involved in substance abuse prevention. Ninette has been involved in public health for over 15 years, with a particular focus on campaigns and on clubbing and health.