Co-ordinator
The younger you are when you first start taking drugs, the more likely you are to run into problems.
The Youth Outreach Programme was started because of the younger age at which people first start using drugs. Adolescence is also a crucial stage for psychological development and so the ramifications for adolescents who use mood-altering substances are more severe.
Obviously a lot of experimentation is going on and for many people this isn't a problem. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when problems start but using drugs to cope with the everyday stresses and strains of life is a definite point. Many people think addiction is the only negative aspect related to drug use. But most people, especially adolescents, will run into problems way before they get to the point of addiction. Drugs impact negatively on your life way before this point.
youth outreach
Our prevention programmes are designed to provide schools with the skills, resources, expertise and experience necessary to face up to the challenge of substance abuse themselves, rather than rely on outside agencies who are expensive and often ineffective. The programmes function on three levels:
Primary Prevention
Drug education and life skills programmes. Most activities centre around our schools programme called 'Voices' (See outline below).
Secondary Prevention
This involves intervention activities on the school premises.
Tertiary Prevention
The Centre also provides outpatient treatment in an adolescent stream. Adolescents are the largest client group at the Centre.
voices
We call our School Drug Awareness and Life Skills Programme "Voices" because, whenever you are faced with a decision, there are always several 'voices' in your head all saying something different.
Myths about drugs are everywhere in our society and these myths are often internalised and become a 'voice' within us. Because these 'voices' now come from within they are often regarded as being natural. Part of our programme involves looking at these 'voices' and finding out where they come from, why they exist and if they are true.
The programme involves addressing parents, student workshops and running teacher training courses to give them the skills, knowledge and expertise to respond to issues around adolescence and drugs. Topics covered include how to identify drugs, the nature of addiction, attitudes towards addiction, a history of prevention strategies and an overview of adolescent theory.
We also work with schools to facilitate the development of school drug policies. There are still schools that will expel a student first thing if there is any indication of substance abuse. Other schools are aware of students who use drugs, or even students who are addicted to drugs, but the school feels that it is their responsibility, even in this extreme situation, to help the student achieve as good a Matric as possible.
I'm sceptical about random urine testing. This is not the quick fix it is marketed as. But there may be a role for urine testing in some circumstances. Really I prefer to provide schools with relevant information
and help them to develop their own drug policies. If you just supply a policy, teachers don't
feel as if the policies are their own. And the school drug policy won't function.
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