Canadian Standards For Community Based Youth Substance Abuse Prevention

Aspect of Addiction that the Initiative focuses on

The youth of the world is the future generation who are entrusted with the responsibility of carrying forward the past cultures and traditions. Humankind has to deal with many problems arising out of everyday routine. However, in some parts of the world, especially in Canada, it is found that many of the youth instead of tackling the problems, choose other methods, sometimes self-deprecating, to deal with these problems (Goodman et al., 2015). Substance abuse has become a glaring problem affecting the youth in Canada. Many community initiatives have been adopted in order to provide solution to the rampage of substance abuse. This paper seeks to discuss the community initiative Canadian Standards for Community based Youth Substance Abuse Prevention started by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction. The paper analyzes the various steps taken by the initiative Canadian Standards for Community based Youth Substance Abuse Prevention to prevent and control the use of substance among the youth. It concludes on how the support given by the community is appropriate for the target group.

Prevention is the aspect of addiction that the initiative Canadian Standards for Community based Youth Substance Abuse Prevention by The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction  intends to focus on. The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction launched a prevention strategy for drug use, for a five year period in 2007, known as Canadian Standards for Community based Youth Substance Abuse Prevention (Stronger Together: Canadian Standards for Community-based Youth Substance Abuse Prevention, 2018). The initiative seeks to help the youth within the age group of ten to twenty four years with their addiction problem using the methods of prevention and harm reduction. Prevention means that the initiative will take necessary steps to stop the use of harmful substances by the people concerned (Crépault, Rehm & Fischer, 2016). According to a report published by the 2011 Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey, the youth within this age group uses more illegal substances than those who are more than twenty-five years of age (Canada, 2018). The brain of a child undergoes important development till the teenage years. However, when substance abuse occurs, it has a direct adverse impact on the brain and nerve cells of a human being, where the children are more prone to such negative effects. The initiative on Canadian Standards for Community based Youth Substance Abuse Prevention has devised certain strategies to counter this problem. It aims to reduce the harmful use of the illicit substances in the short run and to prevent their use completely in the long run. For this purpose, the Centre has introduced campaign works, which will try to aim to make its target audience aware about the motive of the Centre and how it proposes to help the people involved. The campaigns and workshops are the highlights of this initiative and they will be organized in every major districts of United Sates, which are known for youths using harmful substances. These campaigns will focus on the harmful effects of substance abuse, and how the people concerned, can be cured with medications and rehabilitation (Ccdus.ca, 2018). All evidenced instances are taken into consideration and assessed efficiently.

Proposed Benefits of the Initiative

The community initiative Canadian Standards for Community based Youth Substance Abuse Prevention by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction is to help the youth and children is immensely beneficial for the Canadian community as a whole. The youth are the future generation and the responsibility to take the future of Canada forward is entrusted to them. The abuse of illicit substances and drugs greatly reduce the mental capacity of people. Among the children, this adverse side effect is more pertinent as their brain are still in the developing stage (McKee, 2017). Moreover, the physical capabilities of such individuals also take a hit. The use of illicit substances has an adverse effect on the pregnancy of women and this puts both the mother and child in danger (Schmidt et al., 2017). The initiative launched by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction is unique because it seeks to prevent this from happening and aims to keep the youth safe from substance abuse. The community initiative organizes workshops and seminars where the concerned youth are made aware of the adverse effects of the illicit substances. Another unique feature of this initiative is that it gives personal guidance to every individual without any discrimination according to his or her needs. This will help the Canadian community to produce individuals with a higher mental and physical capability who will ensure a bright future for Canada.

A research was conducted in Canada which was in the nature of population health survey. This survey aimed to estimate the percentage of Canadian population which was affected by substance abuse. The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction launched a prevention strategy for drug use, for a five year period in 2007, known as Canadian Standards for Community based Youth Substance Abuse Prevention (Ccdus.ca, 2018). This initiative aimed at reducing the use of drugs among the children and the youth who are in the age group of fifteen to twenty four years. A Drug Prevention Strategy for Canada’s Youth recommended that the policies and the strategies of such initiatives are most helpful when they are propagated with the help of various media platforms, such as television, radio and through different social media handles. Utilization of offline platforms also prove to be helpful such as newspaper advertisements and advertisements on banners (Taylor, Buchanan & Ayres, 2016). The message of prevention must also be propagated through the various educational institutions and families where the chances of reaching the target group is high.

Since its inception in 2007, the initiative Canadian Standards for Community based Youth Substance Abuse Prevention has undergone several development. In the year 2013-2014, the initiative concentrated on finding and tabulating the various drugs that are consumed illegally and how they adversely affect the youth of the country (Ccdus.ca, 2018). The survey also provided an array of preventive options which can be utilized to tackle the grave crisis.

The annual report 2014-2015 of Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction marked another important development in the path of the initiative. In this year, the strategy took cognizance of the fact that addiction influences the other people of the community (Ccdus.ca, 2018). For instance, if a youth uses an illicit substance, there is a high probability that someone else within the same age group, and known to that individual, is likely to face the same problem.

Overview of Research that supports Initiative Development

The year 2015-2016 focused on providing substantial preventive measures and outcomes. All the data gathered from the earlier years were consolidated in order to create a formal database. Information from this database was used to strategize and find out what measures can be adopted which will have a long lasting positive impact on the concerned individual.  After the formulation of the roadmap, the various policies adopted were executed such as the Centre took up initiatives to send the individuals to attend workshops where the harmful effects of substances were analyzed in detail (Ccdus.ca, 2018).

The Centre continued with its policy of taking reality based actions in the next years. The main concern was to reduce the rising deaths from the use of illicit substances in high dosages.

According to Maté (2008), in his book “In the realm of hungry ghosts”, addiction is a problem which affects majority of the people. The book describes various clients who are addicted to various illegal substances right from childhood. One of the clients mentioned in the book is a young woman named Arlene. According to the author, Arlene is a woman who was sexually exploited during her childhood days, which led her to abuse substance in order to find relief. She also dealt with her pains by self-inflicting pains on herself.

The community initiative of Canadian Standards for Community based Youth Substance Abuse Prevention launched by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction would prove to be beneficial for an individual such as Arlene because the initiative aims to provide guidance and support to such individuals who are under the influence of these harmful substances (Begun, & Clapp, 2016). Moreover, Arlene would be connected to her peers many of whom have gone through the same mental trauma as she did in her early life; they will be able to provide invaluable support to her (Lampert et al., 2015). This is the unique feature of this initiative as there are hardly any community initiatives that focuses so much on community identity and a peer related strategy. The essence of being in a similar community and a helpful center will help Arlene to recover faster.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we can deduce that a community initiative is imperative to counteract a grave social crisis as such as addiction. Being around people who have faced similar conditions which propelled them to misuse harmful substances, helps the concerned individuals to deal with their problems in a more effective manner. Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction tries to ensure that the youth of Canada is emotionally and physically fit to carry forward the future of the country.

References

Begun, A. L., & Clapp, J. D. (2016). Reducing and preventing alcohol misuse and its consequences: A Grand Challenge for social work. The International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research, 5(2), 73-83.

Canada, H. (2018). Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey (CADUMS) – Canada.ca. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-concerns/drug-prevention-treatment/canadian-alcohol-drug-use-monitoring-survey.html

Ccdus.ca. (2018). About CCSA | Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. Retrieved from https://www.ccdus.ca/Eng/About-CCSA/Pages/default.aspx

Crépault, J. F., Rehm, J., & Fischer, B. (2016). The Cannabis Policy Framework by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health: a proposal for a public health approach to cannabis policy in Canada. International Journal of Drug Policy, 34, 1-4.

Goodman, I., Henderson, J., Peterson-Badali, M., & Goldstein, A. L. (2015). The relationship between psychosocial features of emerging adulthood and substance use change motivation in youth. Journal of substance abuse treatment, 52, 58-66.

Lampert, S. M., Kaye, A. D., Urman, R. D., & Manchikanti, L. (2015). Drug testing and adherence monitoring in substance abuse patients. In Substance Abuse (pp. 621-631). Springer, New York, NY.

Maté, G. (2008). In the realm of hungry ghosts. Toronto: Vintage Canada.

McKee, S. A. (2017). Concurrent substance use disorders and mental illness: Bridging the gap between research and treatment. Canadian Psychology/psychologie canadienne, 58(1), 50.

Schmidt, E. M., Gupta, S., Bowe, T., Ellerbe, L. S., Phelps, T. E., Finney, J. W., … & Harris, A. H. (2017). Predictive validity of a quality measure for intensive substance use disorder treatment. Substance abuse, 38(3), 317-323.

Stronger Together: Canadian Standards for Community-based Youth Substance Abuse Prevention. (2018). [Ebook]. Retrieved from https://www.ccsa.ca

Taylor, S., Buchanan, J., & Ayres, T. (2016). Prohibition, privilege and the drug apartheid: The failure of drug policy reform to address the underlying fallacies of drug prohibition. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 16(4), 452-469.