GRENADA'S PRESENTATION AT SUBSTANCE ABUSE PREVENTION WORKSHOP WELL RECEIVED BY CARICOM COUNTERPARTS
St. George's Grenada, Thursday, February 18th, 2010 - The Drug Control Secretariat at the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development is now better poised to confront issues relating to substance abuse.
This follows Grenada’s participation in a regional workshop for substance Abuse Prevention Professionals hosted by the National Council on Drug Abuse in Jamaica.
With backing from the Caricom Secretariat and the European Union delegates spent three days discussing “The Nuts and Bolts of Prevention Planning for Behavior Change in Caribbean States.”
The hope is to strengthen substance abuse prevention planning through the integration of culturally sensitive behavior change models and approaches in Caribbean programmes.
The main objective is to reach agreement on the acceptance of one model which will eventually be used across the region.
Each Caribbean state made a presentation on an intervention method that has worked in their country, following which they were placed into groups to look at and pick one of the programmes presented that they would like to see implemented throughout CARICOM.
Significant to note is that three of the six groups at the workshop chose Grenada’s presentation on Prevention at the Pre-school and Kindergarten level as their projects, according to Assistant Drug Control Officer Mrs. Elizabeth Japal.
“Of course they would have made adjustments, seen ways which they could improve, things which they omitted, but at the end of the day Grenada’s presentation was well received by the member states.”
Some of the areas addressed included: Communication in Substance Abuse Prevention Planning; Crime, Violence and Drug Abuse; Funding and Financing; Recruiting and Managing Volunteers; and Research, Policy and Behavior Change.
Conference officials hope that with the sharing of information participants would be able to apply selected aspects of the tools associated with behavior change communication strategies and review existing or proposed prevention programmes in the context of behavior change communication.
According to Mrs. Japal the coming together of stakeholders helps to foster growth and aid in the ability of each state to address the issue of substance abuse and the challenges it present.
“When stakeholders come together they can share from their experiences – programmes that work, those that didn’t work to well – and then you can chart the way forward to greater things in light of working towards eradicating this whole issue of drug abuse.”
Grenada was represented at the workshop by Drug Control Officer Dave Alexander and Assistant Drug Control Officer Mrs. Elizabeth Japal.
Over 20 countries were represented at the workshop which was held at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica.
Written By: MOEPRO
Date Posted: 2/18/2010
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