NCSA hosts workshop

In an effort to educate social workers and other key stakeholders on the signs and symptoms of drug use, how to identify drugs and findings on emerging trends, the National Council on Substance Abuse hosted a full-day workshop yesterday.

As he delivered brief remarks, Deputy Manager of the NCSA, Troy Wickham noted that yesterday’s workshop was in keeping with the Organisation of American States (OAS) CICAD Hemispheric Guidelines on Workplace Prevention, which highlighted the need to train key personnel in organisations.

“We at the NCSA Aim to educate you social workers about the signs and symptoms of drug use, how to identify drugs, some of our finds and about the emerging trends,” he said.

“In fulfilling our mission to “promote sustained action for positive change in the fight against substance abuse”, the NCSA intends to host strategic Drug Education Seminars for persons in the workplace and professional groups as a means to strengthen multiple stakeholders in this fight against substance abuse,” he continued.

He reported that it was no secret that research was showing that children as young as eight years old experiment with drugs, and it is against this backdrop that Wickham stated it was paramount to educate adults to the dangers of drug use.

Makeada Bourne, Community Programme Officer at NCSA told The Barbados Advocate the social work seminars have sessions on drug education which are conducted by members of the Royal Barbados Police Force.

“We are doing this series of workshops throughout the year because we recognise the importance of empowering persons in the workplace as well as empowering professionals,” she said.

“So we are taking groups of professionals and educating them; this is a very strategic move based on the fact that in training professionals I get parents, employees members of the community, loved ones who may know someone that is abusing or using a drug in one group and we will be able to spread the word and information on the impact of drug use.”

She described these workshops as important because the NCSA is able to keep the population up-to-date on any current trends and how to deal with them. (CLF)