ALCOHOL CONCERN

Registered charity no: 291705

Alcohol Concern is the national agency on alcohol misuse in England and Wales.

We work both to reduce the costs of alcohol misuse and to develop the range and quality of helping services available to problem drinkers and their families.

Since we began work in 1984 Alcohol Concern has built up expertise on a wide range of alcohol-related issues. We use this to influence and to support health and social policies both nationally and locally.

Our staff work in specialised teams focusing on:

Education - holding national and local training/educational events for professional staff and in the workplace.

Services - supporting, advising on and improving the quality of existing local advice and treatment agencies and allocating funds for new ones.

Policy - influencing national policies on all aspects of alcohol use and misuse e.g. advertising, licensing, young people, and alcohol and crime.

Information - offering a the UK's most comprehensive library and information service on alcohol, a quarterly research bulletin, factsheets, and running a mail order book shop.

Publications - publishing a quarterly magazine, educational and training materials, and a wide range of information leaflets, booklets and posters.

Media - using radio, television and the press to raise awareness about alcohol misuse. Services for problem drinkers - running a grants programme to extend counselling and advice services to areas where there is no existing provision.

Training - implementing a National Alcohol Training Strategy for the many different professions that come into contact with problem drinkers, and maintaining ACAC (Alcohol Concern Assessment Centre) through which workers in the alcohol field can gain qualifications.

Among the issues with which Alcohol Concern has been involved recently are:

Drink driving - supporting calls for a range of measures, including random breath testing of motorists, to reduce the deaths caused by drinking drivers.
Community care - lobbying for adequate funding of treatment facilities for alcohol misusers, nationally and locally, in the wake of the NHS and Community Care Act.

Alcohol at work - running a Workplace Alcohol Advisory Service, and co-ordinating the national Federation of Workplace Alcohol Advisory Services, to tackle alcohol problems at work which result in up to 14 million lost working days each year.

Special groups - considering the particular problems faced by women, Black people and people in rural areas with drinking problems, and making help easier to find.

Alcohol Concern
Waterbridge House
32-6 Loman Street
London
SE1 0EE

020-7928 7377
020-7928 4644
http://www.alcoholconcern.org.uk/

Associated Medical Information