NCSA PUSH

The National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA) has made a push to increase the capacity of churches and faith-based organizations to implement substance abuse prevention programming.

Efforts got underway yesterday with a Drug Education Seminar which brought together some 50 Pastors and Ministry Leaders to NCSA’s Belleville Headquarters.

Manager of NCSA, Betty Hunte reinforced that the negative impact of substance abuse does not take into consideration ones social class, gender or mailing address.

She said that in fulfilling NCSA’s mission to “promote sustained action for positive change in the fight against substance abuse,” the Council intends to host such sessions in order to ensure that factual information about drug use and abuse, reaches all, especially the more vulnerable populations like children, youth and the elderly.

“The challenge of drug misuse and abuse requires a co-ordinated, national approach, and in this regard, we have undertaken educational interventions with the Barbados Professional Social Workers, the Ministry of Transport, Works and Maintenance, Banks Holdings Limited, Transport Authority, among others.”

“We also recognise that our most important stakeholders include employees, parents, community members, family members of drug users and other professional workers in the drug prevention field. That is where you are counted,” she told participants.

“The Church is Barbados has traditionally been involved in their respective communities. Institutions like yours seek to strengthen many of the same target audiences as those of prevention programs – youth, individual, families, and the community- at -large. You exist almost cheek by jowl with rum-shops in communities and so, these factors, by their very nature, place faith-based organisations in a unique position to enhance existing prevention approaches and have a positive effect on a community’s response to substance abuse.”

Therefore, recognising that the Church requires resources and training in order to provide effective substance abuse prevention programming, Hunte further explained that the seminar aimed to educate them about the signs and symptoms of drug use, how to identify drugs, on research findings and about emerging drug trends.

“This is in keeping with the Organisation of American States (OAS) CICAD Hemispheric Guidelines on Workplace Prevention which highlights the need for training key personnel in organisations,” she said. (TL)