[Evaluation of contact and care centers, a low-threshold daytime source in the city of Zurich].
Contact centres for drug addicts in the city of Zurich exist since 1988 to provide decentralized low threshold meeting places and contact centres for persons who are poor and neglected. The main objective of these survival aids is to counteract further impoverishment of the addicted in order to actively contribute to their subsistence. Since its foundation the project as a whole has been submitted to numerous structural changes which had to be taken into consideration by the evaluation. Subject of the examination was the description of the target group and the staff, the use of the services and their effect on the users as well as the environment. Only quantitative methods were used. The target group of the centers consisted of drug consumers who at the best are partially socially integrated, but usually completely desintegrated. The evaluation revealed that the different contact centers services were extensively used and met the focal needs of their users. However, the high fluctuation of personnel within the project teams turned out to be a permanent problem for the project management and the operators. As main reasons for the fluctuation the authors discuss the great dependency on political decisions and the problematical demanding clientele. Due to these structural turbulences some staff related offers are only accepted to a limited degree, and the contact centers tend to become simple supply services. Therefore the authors endorse the redefinition of long term objectives of the institution under consideration of the necessary framework.