Graduates have tools to fight addiction
Participants who completed the Community Addiction Studies Course received their certificates at a presentation ceremony last Tuesday in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Dundalk.
Presenting the certificates, Councillor Maeve Yore, paid tribute to the hard work and commitment of the group to strengthen the capacity of their communities to respond to addiction. She said this begins with understanding the process of addiction and the capacity for change and recovery.
Appreciation was also given to URRUS, governing body of the Casc course and to the continued support from Andy Ogle of the North East Regional Drug & Alcohol Task Force. The course was facilitated by Samantha Teather and Marlena Porter of Information & Education Programmes. The Community Addiction Studies Course CASC is for people living or working in local communities who wish to be more effective when dealing with drug and alcohol issues.
The course aims at helping people to learn about drugs and their effects; to develop an understanding of addiction; to examine their own attitudes to drug use; to become more effective in their personal response and to develop the skills and knowledge to become more effective in responding to drug misuse in their own communities.
The course proved enormously popular with participants acknowledging that it helped them to have a much broader understanding of the complexities of the drugs issue and to build their capacity and that of the communities they represented to respond to these issues.
The course is a part-time evening course which developed by URRUS, a Ballymun Youth Action Project, and is QQI Fetac Level 5 accredited. The course runs for 20 weeks for 3 hours per week plus one Saturday.
Those doing the course will study pharmaceutical information on drugs and their effects; process of addiction; how addiction affects individuals, families, communitie; how individuals and communities can respond and field visits to drug services.
It is established that the complex problem of substance misuse will not be resolved by any single agency. This collaborative approach between the different agencies with the sharing of skills and ideas between all sectors provides an excellent example of how much more effective we can be when we work together to meet these challenges.
The next Community Addiction Studies course will begin February 2020 with interviews being held beforehand. Anyone interested please contact: Ms Therese Mulvany, Tel: 046 9248630 or email: info@ nedrugtaskforce.ie