This short document described an approach to community-based prevention of drug misuse, which used methodology based on the experience of projects in Belgium, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Ireland. The report was produced by the Crosscare Drug Awareness Programme, a non-government organisation founded by the social service agency of the Catholic diocese of Dublin and funded by the diocese, the Eastern Health Board and by fund-raising. The aim of the programme was to support, facilitate, train and empower communities to develop their own resources, so that they could play a central role in preventing and repairing the damaging effects of drug misuse. This document defined the various issues involved and gave step-by-step instructions for setting up a leadership group for drug prevention in the community. It emphasised the need for training and for evaluation, and described methods for carrying these out. This was a practical manual, which accompanied the report Crosscare produced in 1997, entitled Leadership training for drug prevention (Murphy, 1997).