Background: Substance use among youths is a significant global and local issue. Youth who engage in substance use often experience various psychosocial, health, economic, and other problems. While governmental and non-governmental organizations in North Wollo and Waghimra Zones offer social services, their effectiveness in preventing and controlling substance use remains largely unstudied. This research aims to explore youth substance use prevention techniques and control mechanisms, youth participation, and potential challenges encountered by social service organizations.Methods: A qualitative case study design was employed in North Wollo and Waghimra Zones, Northeast Ethiopia. Purposive sampling was used to recruit participants. A total of 40 participants were involved, including 10 key informant interviews and 5 focus group discussions (FGDs) of youths (6 participants per group). The data collection instrument included a pre-tested semi-structured in-depth interview, an FGD guide, and an observation checklist. The collected data were analyzed thematically.Findings: Prevention efforts primarily focused on awareness-raising campaigns and advocacy programs. Control mechanisms were predominantly reactive, including measures such as regulating the substance trade, punishing drug dealers, destroying and burning drug paraphernalia, and closing substance trade centers. The study found limited youth involvement in substance use prevention and control initiatives. Several key challenges were identified in the prevention and control of youth substance use: limited government involvement, reliance only on reactive measures, low youth engagement, insufficient intersectoral collaboration, lack of community commitment, gaps in social institutions, absence of planned interventions, the economic role of substances, government ignorance, and the absence of comprehensive legal frameworks for prevention and control.Conclusion and recommendation: This study highlights a gap in prevention and control mechanisms, and engagement of youths, non-governmental as well as governmental bodies. This study recommends making evidence-based interventions and installing functional networks among sectors to deal with common issues. This issue also should not be left to a single organization and government agencies, families, religious, and educational institutions should play a leading role in tackling substance use burdens at the grassroots level.

The studys objective is to investigate the practices and challenges of implementing an integrated functional adult education program. The study used a mixed-method approach with a convergent design. Data were gathered from IFAE learners, facilitators, district education experts, supervisors, and the programs technical committees. Simple random sampling techniques were used, while comprehensive sampling techniques were used for facilitators. District education experts, supervisors, and technical committees were interviewed using semistructured interviews, while IFAE learners and facilitators were interviewed using questionnaires. The data was analyzed using descriptive statics like frequency, percentage, and mean, as well as a description of the interviewees opinion. As a result, the findings revealed that the IFAE programs contents are more focused on agricultural education and are also relevant to their daily lives. In addition, appropriate materials and teaching methods were used. The major challenges of the districts IFAE program were a lack of a conducive learning environment; participation and integration of different stakeholders; integration between sectors, overlapping of timetable with learners own work, insufficient budget allocation, and a lack of facilitators training. To that end, it was suggested that strong cooperation and participation among government and nongovernment organizations, as well as strong integration between sectors, be encouraged. Furthermore, if regional, zonal, and district education offices need to find ways to increase their budget or raise funds to increase facilitator salaries and equip them, different learning materials were recommended.