New drug education programme launched to help local drug addicts

A new programme to help young people and their families deal with drug-related issues has been established by Ossary Youth and the Aislinn Centre in Kilkenny.

According to Ossory Youth’s drug worker Mel Bay there is a rising number of incidents involving young people and alcohol and drugs in Kilkenny, so either our approaches in getting the message across to young people are not working, or we’re not reaching those with the greatest exposure to drug and alcohol abuse.

In response to this realisation Ossary Youth teamed up with Geraldine Harnett of The Aislinn Treatment Centre in Ballyragget to develop a drug education programme like no other.

“We started with a blank canvass and looked at who we wanted to target and how we could do it most effectively,” Ms Bay said. “We’ve tried lots of programmes before but always found that something was missing.”

An invitation was extended to a former resident of Aislinn who is in recovery and two parents from the South East Family Support Network to help design and deliver the programme and the result was a four-session (one session per week) programme based in the Aislinn Centre involving four young people and their parents.

“We kept it really simple and just created a nice, respectful, and honest space for our courageous volunteers affected by drugs and alcohol to share their stories with the young people and their parents. There were no flipcharts, exercises, or pressure to participate,” according to Geraldine, manager of family services and continuing care with the Aislinn Centre.

“Each element to the sessions was carefully thought out so that the session had one simple and clear message. We focused on three key questions — who are the young people who need drug education most, what are the key things they need to learn about, and how can we do it effectively and with the utmost respect for where the young people are at.”

The programme was hugely successful, and with funding from the South East Regional Drugs Task Force and Ossory Youth, the Aislinn Centre has been able to document the programme for future use.

For young people or parents affected by alcohol and other drugs, they can contact Mel Bay in Ossory Youth at 056 7761200, the Aislinn Centre at 056 8833777, or Ardú (the HSE Substance Misuse Team) at 1890 464 600. All calls are treated in confidence.

Source: Killkenny Advertiser, 17/09/2010