"Problem gambling and gambling addiction is a serious phenomenon. Finland has some of the highest figures for gambling in Europe. Gambling can be seen in everyday environments in many different ways. Gambling problems affect hundreds of thousands of Finnish people either directly or indirectly. An estimated 124 000 residents (3,3%) in Finland have a gambling problem and nearly 20% has a relative whose gambling is out of control. A recent school survey showed that 7.1% of eighth and ninth graders said they gambled once or twice weekly in Finland. Ireland has the third highest gambling losses per adult, in the world (based on 2016 figures). According to the Department of Health, Ireland has in the region of 30,000 people with gambling problems (aged 15 and over). The UK Royal College of Psychiatrists Faculty Report found that: “an estimated 8 to 10 other people in the gambler’s social network will be seriously affected"". This means that there could be somewhere between 270,000 and 330,000 people affected by problem gambling in Ireland. In Norway, the latest research results are from 2015. A new study and results will be published in 2020. Based on 2015, there are about 730,000 people in, who are affected by gambling harms, either as a gambler, or as a significant other.Sosped Foundation has gained knowledge of problem gambling and developed effective peer support, training and mentoring models since 2008. Pelirajat'on/Limit'less Gambling is Sosped Foundation's flag ship and it has achieved broad coverage in Finland, rapid growth and proven effectiveness. Our next steps are (Together with Spillavhengighet Norge and Problem Gambling Ireland): 1.Create a structure and training for the ”next level” experts by experience, so that we can answer to the need of public health in future2. Provide the operating model for international use.
3. Learn more about the phenomenon globally (including treatment, differences in regimes etc.) 4.Create a structure and training that can be copied in other areas (for example mental health issues, other addictions) so that we have certain type of standard in our field of experts by experience. Sosped Foundation, together with Spillavhengighet Norge and Problem Gambling Ireland are going to be sharing knowledge and best practices, to learn from each other and to develop an international model of ”next level”(gambling-harms) expert by experience. In all three countries, there's a demand for knowledge, new approaches, effective models and concrete tools that support our public health professionals and treatment (expert by experience working side by side with professionals), tools that help organizations and individual experts by experience to influence in society and structure and training for those individuals who have suffered harms (in this case gambling) and want to continue their work of helping others in a bigger scale. There's no tradition of co-operation and co-development in the field of problematic gambling/ gambling addiction in Europe. Different countries have only understood the scope and severity of the problem in the recent years and have started to develop and implement effective support models and services for adult population. Compared to substance abuse, problematic gambling is often forgotten and hard to detect. Innovation of this project comes from the beginning. Idea of this project came from Experts by experience and the need they have witnessed amongst the gamblers and their significant other and in public health, professionals and policymakers. Sosped Foundation has developed different peer-to-peer models and has gained good results in Finland. Peer advisors and experts by experience are trained, supported and the activities are evaluated on a regular basis. An expert by experience is a person who has lived experience on mental health and/or substance abuse challenges or other kinds of life crisis. Experience-based knowledge is needed for developing services, changing attitudes and creating an understanding of challenges which people meet during their lifespan. Good and wide knowledge of Sosped gives us unique possibility to be able to create a whole new training/education, which will answer to the need of public health in the future. The next step is to create the next level training for international use, with our partners from Norway and Ireland. Through exchange of expertise and good practices the project aims to create a high level training, competence and ability of all three organisations to support, educate their target groups, spread the knowledge to society and public health by trained experts by experience and in the end- spread this next level training to other areas, such as mental health issues and other addictions.The target group is people who have suffered problematic gambling or gambling addiction as a gambler or as a significant other and who have recovered from problematic gambling or gambling addiction."