David Best is Associate Professor of Addiction Studies and is a joint appointment with Monash University. He is from Scotland and qualified initially with a first class honours degree in Psychology with Philosophy, before achieving a Masters with Distiction in Criminology. His PhD was about the explanations drug and alcohol users provide for their addictions and how this shapes their perceptions of what is possible in the future. He has worked in academic research at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, the Insitute of Psychiatry in London, Birmingham University and the University of the West of Scotland. He has worked in policy research at the Police Complaints Authority, the National Treatment Agency and the Prime Ministers's Delivery Unit.

• Drugs and crime: and has been involved in work for the UK Home Office as well as developing and evaluating interventions for drug using offenders
• Treatment effectiveness: was lead for parts of the UK treatment effectiveness initiative, and has been lead on project work in this area in Birmingham and for the Welsh Assembly Government
• Recovery: His primary commitment in the addictions field is to recovery
• David Best was the first Chair of the Scottish Drugs Recovery Consortium established as part of the national drug strategy, "The Road to Recovery"
• He is currently the chair of the UK Recovery Academy to promote academic research into who recovers and when
• His book "Addiction Recovery: A movement for social change and personal growth in the UK" is to be published in January 2012

Turning Point

As acting lead for Clinical Research at Turning Point, he is overseeing a number of clinical research projects but has a direct role in:

• Developing a new screening and assessment tool and piloting it
• Developing a manualised treatment for Portal to Alcohol Counselling Therapy (PACT)
• Reviewing and developing evaluation methods for clinical supervision

External

• Developing an instrument for assessing recovery capital
• Assessing treatment populations to assess possibilities for "segmentation"
• Developing recovery models for engaging treatment services and professional
• Developing materials and evaluation for peer based recovery activity
• Supporting treatment effectiveness projects in England and Wales

• Best, D., Day, E., Campbell, A., Simpson, D. & Flynn, P. (2009) Relationship between drug treatment engagement and criminal thinking style among drug-using offenders. European Addiction Research, 15, 71-77.
•  Simpson, D., Rowan-Szal, G., Joe, G., Best, D., Day, E. & Campbell, A. (2009) Relating counselor attributes to client engagement in England. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 36, 313-320.
•  Best, D., Day, E., Morgan, B., Oza, T., Copello, A. & Gossop, M. (2009) What treatment means in practice: An analysis of the therapeutic activity provided in criminal justice drug treatment services in Birmingham, England. Addiction Research and Theory, 17 (6), 678-687.
•  Best, D., Walker, D., Aston, E., Pegram, C. & O’Donnell, G. (2010) Assessing the impact of a high intensity partnership between the police and drug treatment service in addressing the offending of problematic drug users. Policing and Society, 20 (3), 358-369
•  Best, D., Day, E., Cantillano, V., Gaston, R., Nambamali, A., Sweeting, R., Keaney, F. (2008) Mapping heroin careers: Utilising a standardized history-taking method to assess the speed of escalation of heroin using careers in a treatment-seeking cohort. Drug and Alcohol Review, 27, 169-174.
•  Day, E., Best, D., Cantillano, V., Gaston, V., Nambamali, A., Keaney, F. (2008) Measuring the use and career histories of drug users in treatment: Reliability of the Lifetime Drug Use History (LDUH) and its data yield relative to clinical case notes. Drug and Alcohol Review, 27, 175-181.
•  Hibbert, L. & Best, D. (2011) Assessing recovery and functioning in former problem drinkers at different stages of their recovery journey. Drug and Alcohol Review, 30, 12-20.

 Complete Publication List