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Community Drugs Initiatives are being run in a number of towns across the region, these are: - Tralee
- Killarney
- Listowel
- Bandon
- Cobh
- Macroom
- Youghal
- Mallow
- Mitchelstown
- Fermoy
Each Community Drugs Initiative has a local management committee made up from local residents, professionals who work in the town, an employing agency and RDTF. The workers on the projects are “hosted” (employed) by a relevant organisation, (be that a Partnership Company or Youth Organisation), but are responsible to the management committee for their day to day work. Workers on a Community Drugs Iinitiative are neither “youth workers” nor “counsellors”, but have skills that are common to both areas. Workers, who work to "Prochaska and DiClemente, Cycle of Change" model, are trained in various skills and techniques that allow them to offer the best support they can to the young person they are working with and that young person’s family. Those skills and techniques include: - Motivational Interviewing,
- Brief Interventions,
- Auricular Acupuncture,
- Solution Focussed Therapy.
The workers tend to target young people, aged 14 – 21, who may have developed addictions to drugs or alcohol, or who are identified as being at serious risk of doing so. However this age range is flexible at either end, depending on the nature of drug use in a locality. Referrals to projects come from a variety of sources – GP’s, Social Workers, Gardai, Probation Service, Community, etc... The aim of the Community Drugs Iinitiative is to support the young person to change their habits and use of drugs or alcohol, be that through harm reduction methodology, or encouragement towards total abstinence. Young people may be encouraged to take up education, become more involved in local youth activity, or be referred into treatment. As addiction impacts on more than just the young person, many Community Drugs Initiatives are now establishing parent support, or concerned persons support groups. A further service, under development, is a home Detox support service in one town. This is being piloted in partnership with local GP’s, partly in response to the lack of Detox places and difficulty in gaining a place on a treatment programme.
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