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The activities of the project are aimed at improving the knowledge and at exchanging innovative measures of practices alternative to imprisonment, both in pre and in post trial phase. The first step of activities regards the collection of information both from scientific literature (in order to enlarge the knowledge on pre and post trial non custodial measures with an update of relevant legislation) and from research activities (in order to collect the existing practices on alternatives to detention in the 7 countries involved in the project - IT, BG, LV, GB, RO, FR, DE).
The second step of the project concerns the identification of good practices in each country and the definition of a first draft of Guidelines for the implementation of alternatives to detention and for the definition of a Training Package targeted to staff working in services providing alternatives to prison settings.
The project also foresees the involvement of an external experts committee, in order to implement a feasibility study of the Training Package and a transferability study of the Guidelines.
Objectives of the project are:

• to enlarge the knowledge on pre and post trial non custodial measures, with an updating of relevant legislation, as well as their costs and effectiveness;
• to map the existing practices related to pre and post trial alternatives to detention through in-depth interviews, which can highlight their strengths and weaknesses;
• to collect the existing good practices on pre and post trial alternatives to detention in countries involved in the project, in order to promote a transnational reflection and a debate on methods used in these practices and on results on offenders and victims;
• to define the Guidelines for the implementation of alternatives to prison in European Countries, in order to provide a model to be followed according to national legislations;
• to define the Training Package targeted to operators and professionals working on services providing alternatives to detention;
• to get a validation of the training package and to make the guidelines transferable to other European context, thanks to the involvement of some external experts;
• to communicate and mainstream the main results of the project through different communication channels.

MMWD is designed in the realm of the Europe 2020 Strategy to support regional strategy-making for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Its key assumption is that policy-makers dealing with territorial development are in need of a future-oriented and integrated vision of development, that would help identify key regional and local challenges and translate the targets and objectives of Europe 2020 into territorial policy priorities. To help build such vision MMWD offers a sound and regionalized knowledge base, scenarios with a 2020 horizon that depict the implications of today’s demographic change in local development terms, institutional capacity sessions and roundtables for transnational policy dialogue and cooperation on migration management. The MMWD project aims to fulfil the following goals:

• to improve the analysis and harmonization of the knowledge base on demographic trends and their implications for the prospects of growth and well-being of SEE regions and cities;
• to construct solid demographic forecasts and scenarios to 2020, concerning territorial development trends related to demographic change;
• to strengthen local capacity to undertake evidence-based strategic planning, with migration recognized as a relevant feature for sustainable growth policies;
• to promote and facilitate transnational dialogue among countries and territories that are affected by current demographic trends, with a view to identify comparative advantages in transnational cooperation and promote a more effective regulation of migration flows;
• to disseminate the outputs of the vision-building process of MMWD to an audience of policy makers, practitioners, experts and local communities.

'Drugs Overdose Kills One European Per Hour' (EPHA, 2008) - an alarming but reasonably accurate reflection of the most recent reported European figures (EMCDDA, 2009a). This simple headline however does not account for the complex nature of the overdoses reported or the various comorbidities associated with non-fatal overdoses (Warner-Smith et al, 2002). A number of the fatal overdoses reported in the European reports have occurred alongside the presence of other substances e.g. alcohol, benzodiazepines, cocaine which raises important concerns relating to the influence of poly-drug consumption on fatal overdoses (EMCDDA, 2009a). The toxicological reports add weight to the need for interventions which can address these complex needs. Individuals who take an overdose may in some instances receive health care for substance misuse. However evidence is clear that treatments themselves do not necessarily change the behaviours which put them at higher-risk of fatal overdose. ORION aims to utilise an e-health tool in an innovative approach to raise awareness of factors which influence risk overdose in a European population identified as high-risk. By developing a decision analysis model it is possible to identify personalised risks of subsequent overdose and utilise a targeted approach to provide health care to improve awareness and understanding.