[External partnerships and prevention relative to psychoactive substances: what should be the position of the school and its partners?]

School health education is one of the primary missions of the educational system which is characterised by the involvement of numerous professional institutions, associations, and others, at the heart of academic establishments. The need for partnership within this complex domain has been recognised and affirmed by the official publications of the national Ministry of Education as it has been in actions. In so far as the move towards the recourse of external intervention, should this be considered as the result of a true partnership or an act of simple delegation (or subcontracting)? Firstly, this article proposes to define the concept of partnership. Secondly, it presents the results of a study on the implementation of drug-use prevention in high schools who underline the importance of the problems associated with partnership in this field and attempt to put into perspective the respective points of view of the educational teams and external actors. On the basis of these results, it proposes a typology of the networks from which the activities are built, then analyses the conditions necessary in order that health education be implemented within a framework of partnership established on the competencies, differences and contributions of each partner.