Colombo Plan's Prevention of drug addiction graduates to a new high
The Colombo Plan (CP) Secretariat is to provide university level education on preventing drug addiction, and train professionals in State and private universities towards addressing drug related social issues.
Director of International Centre for Certification and Education of Addiction Professionals (ICCEAP), Tay Bian How said, as a CP initiative, preliminary preparations and discussions are under way to commence the course with the help of the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB).
“We have had formal discussions on incorporating short term and long term courses in addition to the courses offered by the NDDCB currently, while at the same time we are also considering the possibilities of starting advanced cours- es within university education system," Mr How said.
Currently, the CP Secretariat is working closely with University of Colombo to commence courses that covers prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and reintegration of drug addicts into society.
In addition to the courses, the secretariat is also providing training to those who are seeking to become certified professionals with internationally recognized credentials. There are two creden- tials available for prevention specialists, namely International Certified Prevention Specialist (ICPS) and International Certified Addiction professional (ICAP).
“We have set higher standards of professionalism in the field of drug demand reduction. The ICCE utilises regional and national trainers from across the globe to provide training in member countries,” he said.
The ICCE programmes in university level education would be focused on Universal Prevention Curriculum for Substance Use (UPC), Universal Treatment Curriculum for Substance Use Disorders (UTC) Recovery Coach (RC), and Community Outreach and Guiding the Recovery of Women (GROW).
According to Mr How, based on the ICCE’s course contents, local universities can integrate their curricula into an existing course or a new course that can be offered at undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate level.
“Once a local university integrates with our training manuals and course contents, those participating universities become an approved university education partner of ICCE,” he noted.
Calling Sri Lanka’s pattern of drug usage as "not that serious" and "can be managed", Mr How said that, through independent researches, more than 1,000 drug addicts have been identified in Sri Lanka.
Mr How further added that, though the scale of drug usage is relatively low, the consequences of drug abuse are among the most serious problems facing parents and children today. “Drug problems affect family, friends, children and the community at large.”
The Government has allocated Rs 2,500 million to set up a Nursing Faculty, affiliated to the Colombo University, to award Nursing Degrees, officials said.
President Maithripala Sirisena this week reassured the Government will immediately provide the required finances to establish the Nursing Faculty, to fulfil a long term demand.
The President, addressing the Government Nursing Officers Association (GNOA), at the Presidential Secretariat this week said he would give every support to take the Health service forward as a more qualitative and stronger entity. GNOA President Saman Rathnapriya and Nurses' representatives participated in this meeting, where they discussed the establishment of the Nursing Faculty, recruitment of Public Health Nurses and filling vacancies within the Nursing service.
Mr Rathnapriya pointed out that, there are only 31,000 Nurses in Sri Lanka, while the national requirement is 40,000. Stating that the inability to carry out an efficient nurses' service is an issue, he pointed out the importance of implementing a focused programme to fulfill this national requirement.