Previously there had been a Community Drug Action Team (CDAT) in Dungog however like many things it was forced to stop during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We were approached by the coordinator for this area, she spoke to us about whether we would be happy to try and organise to get another team together," Community Centre manager Kate Murphy said.

"The CDAT is a volunteer committee of community members that are interested in harm minimisation and addressing drug and alcohol issues on a local level, looking at what the local issues are and then working out ways to address them.

"The CDAT has amazing resources. The idea is to get CDAT's in a lot of regional communities to help educate the community around facts about drugs and alcohol."

Ms Murphy hopes that by forming a CDAT that the community will be able to address the issues of drugs and alcohol abuse with the backing of a larger organisation behind them.

"They're basically local communities but with the resources of a big organisation behind them, they can give them handouts and evidence-based resources," Ms Murphy said.

"Because it's been going for over 20 years now they actually have proof that having a CDAT in the area will increase people's awareness but also reduce issues from drugs and alcohol in an area."

"The post that I put up in the face on the community centre's Facebook page is basically calling for people that might be interested to join the committee."

CDAT's is funded by the NSW government.

Ms Murphy also emphasised that although the community centre is facilitating the committee, it will be the community's committee. "We will facilitate it, help encourage people to join the committee and obviously provide them support but it's going to be the community's committee, it's not our committee it's theirs," Ms Murphy said.

"The committee will be running educational activities. Members will go out and talk to schools, they can attend events. It's really about educating them but also sitting down and talking about what they believe the main issues in this area are. Some might say ice, others might say drink driving. You've really got to work out what the main issues are in an area before deciding which path are we going to push down on."

The Community Centre's Youth and Family Support Worker, Michelle McIntyre said that part of the committee's job will be identifying which issues are the most prevalent in the Dungog Shire.

"The CDAT will identify the problems related to the legal and illegal use of drugs and alcohol in the community," Ms McIntyre said.

"In terms of data, I'm not 100% sure what the big issues are but that will be up to the committee to find out.

"We really want the information from the community but it's got to be evidence-based. If someone said there's a massive ice problem in Dungog then we would talk to hospitals and paramedics and ask if there's a problem."

Currently there are over 60 CDAT's across NSW in both regional and urban areas.

For more information on the CDAT or to join the committee contact Kate Murphy at manager@dscc.net or 4992 1133.