Substance Abuse In Aboriginals: Community Essay And Action Plan.

Your first tasks are to identify a community problem of interest to you and an organization that focuses on that problem. For example, if you chose HIV/AIDS as your problem, you could use The Minority AIDS Project (http://www.map-usa.org/html/greeting.html) for your organization. Then complete the following in 1,750 words.

1. Community Problem. Identify a community problem, include examples of the problem manifested; integrating material from online sources (e.g., magazines, newspapers) in order to bring the problem to life for the reader. You should also include statistics from a reputable source to support your claim that this is a problem that needs to be addressed. To help support your paper include at least two peer reviewed journal articles that support the topic.
2. Description of the Organization. Provide a brief overview of the organization with an emphasis on a description of the intervention and action approaches utilized by the organization.
3. Analysis of Approaches. Discuss how the programs and activities of the organization are or are not consistent with intervention and action strategies in community psychology. How could you describe the intervention in community psychology terms? In addition, use community psychology ideas to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the intervention strategies.
4. Action in your Community. Describe how you would replicate this program in your own community. How would you disseminate findings about the program to make others aware of the services? How would you educate the community for support of the program?

Use six to eight scholarly, peer-reviewed resources to support your explanations.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide.

Substance Abuse in Aboriginals

Introduction:

Problems are the part of our life and they continue together with being alive. Community problems are defined as the problems that are faced by a large community in the circumstances they live. The community problems may include social or health related problems. The most common example of community problems include adolescent pregnancy, child abuse, drug abuse, health disparity, AIDS or HIV, inadequate resources, social violence, poverty and many others (Spector & Kitsuse, 2017). The cause and effect of the problems vary from group to group. Such problems affect the life of individual in the community and disrupt the personal and community life of individual. Such community problems result in deprivation of legal and moral rights of the people in the community (Sargeant, Wickes & Mazerolle, 2013). Thus, it is important to counter the problems in the community in an effective manner in order to provide better life and well-being to the individual including in the community. The chosen community problem for the assignment is substance abuse in the aboriginals. The following paper will provide a brief idea about the problems related to substance abuse in aboriginals, community programme for resolve the issue and action plan in order to implement the positive aspects of the programme to counter the issue in other communities.

Substance abuse in aboriginals:

Substance abuse disorder is defined as the condition in which the use of one or more toxic substance such as drugs and alcohol leads to the serious health related impairment or distress. The most common components of substance abuse disorder are addiction and dependence that leads to the severe forms of disorder (Kaminer, 2013). The substance abuse disorder is one of the most vital community problems in aboriginals. It was found that, 66% people of the community are dependent on more than one harmful substance (Vowles et al., 2015). There are many factors that lead to the consequence of substance disorder in the aboriginal community. One of the major incidents that lead to the abuse of alcohol and drugs in the aboriginal community is the economic deprivation or poverty. Due to poverty and homeless condition in the community provokes the stressful environment and cause mental distress and poor psychological condition. Poverty is the potential cause of substance dependence. People chose substance like drugs and alcohol in order to get rid of such depression related to poor family condition (Belanger, Awosoga & Head, 2013). Social deprivation is another leading cause of substance abuse in aboriginals. The continuous effect of colonization and dispossession affect the lives of the aboriginals by make them dependent on the substances that causes severe health issue in the community. Lack of adequate education in the community is another cause of substance abuse disorder. Social violence like physical abuse or other victimization leads to the consequence of substance dependence. Family history of alcoholism affects the lives of the adolescents and it acts as the factor that provokes the adolescents to become dependent on harmful substances such as alcohol and drugs. Such increasing rate of substance dependence or addiction leads to serious health and social issues in the community. The life expectancy is lower in the aboriginal community as compare to the non-aboriginal population. The main cause behind the incident is the addiction of the aboriginal women towards alcohol during pregnancy as well. Another leading cause of death is injuries due to accident and substance abuse contributes an important role in this case. Other health issues like mental and physical disorder include cardiovascular risk, respiratory disorder and cancer (Stoneham, Goodman & Daube, 2014). The extreme dependence on harmful substances leads to the lack of ability to perform regular activities and poor participation in the social activities (Lewis,  Dana & Blevins, 2014). . Another serious problem related to substance abuse is that, it influences a person to attempt suicide. In aboriginal community, 28% of the suicide case is induced by the alcohol and drug abuse (Bousoño et al., 2017). Thus, substance abuse become a serious threat for the aboriginal community and affects both the social and health status of the community. It is the big challenge for the community to resolve the issue of substance abuse in order to provide better lifestyle to the people of the community and improve their status in the country.

Community Psychology Organization

Community psychology organization:

Community psychology organizations are defined as the service providers that work to resolve the community problems related to health and other social problems. Such communities introduce effective interventions in order to promote better living status in the community. One of such cooperative organizations is Timmins Native Friendship Centre that provides effective programs in order to counter community problems. A small group of people has come together in order to provide safe gathering place and effective service to the native people, thus established the Timmins Native Friendship Centre in the year 1974. The main influence behind the establishment of the organization was the concern for the aboriginal population regarding their health status and socio-economic condition. The vision of the organization is to provide a culturally safe environment that creates sense of belonging for all aboriginal and non-aboriginal people. Their mission is to provide service in order to induce growth and change by considering the spiritual, cultural and physical well-being in the community. The organization has provided many programs in order to counter the community problems of the aboriginals. In order to counter the issue of substance abuse in the aboriginal community the organization has arranged a program known as Aboriginal Alcohol and Drug Worker Program (AADWP). The objectives of the program are as follows –

• To promote positive health practice that is free from alcohol, drug and solvent abuse in the indigenous population.
• To promote healthy substitutions for alcohol, drug and solvent abuse.
• To promote effective treatment service models in order to cure severe consequences of substance abuse within the aboriginal community.
• To promote programs related to addiction treatment for the people that depends on one or more harmful substances considering the cultural beliefs of the aboriginal community.
• To provide cost effective treatment that is affordable to all and increase the effectiveness of the program within the community.
• To create awareness regarding the harmful effects of substance dependence through the introduction of proper education for the people of the community.

The program has introduced effective interventions in order to achieve desired outcomes. It has provided effective alternatives to harmful substances such as alcohol, drugs and others solvent abuse through community based events that promote positive health practices in order to provide well-being. The program has provided effective treatment processes that are cost effective and helped the addicted people to get rid of substance dependence. It has introduced care support program for the people that return from the treatment centers. The program has developed an educational plan in order to create awareness regarding the harmful effects of the substance abuse in order to prevent the increasing condition of substance abuse disorder. The program has provided information to the schools in the community in order to give a healthy start to the life. The workers of the organization have participated in the health fair in order to promote the community program within the aboriginal population (tnfc.ca, 2012).

Analysis of approaches:

Community psychology refers to the context of individual in the community. It focuses to understand the standard of living and improve the quality of living through effective research and activities in the community. The prospective of community psychology include environmental psychology, economical psychology, cross-cultural psychology, social psychology and community development (Moritsugu et al., 2015). There are some strength of the Aboriginal Alcohol and Drug Worker Program considering the community psychology idea within the aboriginal community. Firstly, the introduction of alternatives to the alcohol, drug and other solvent abuse was helpful for the people that are suffering from the substance dependence. The intervention has been introduced by considering the cross-cultural psychology, so that individual could accept the alternatives (Connors et al., 2013). Secondly, cost effective treatment process has increased the access of the treatment model for all people within the community. The care support for the people that return from the treatment centers was helpful in order to start a better living in the community. Such treatment process has compiled the economic and social psychology of the community (Segal, Morral & Stevens, 2014). The idea of providing education to the individual and providing information in the school has helped to create awareness regarding the harmful effects of the substance dependence. The overall process of the program has helped in community development (Tarter, Ammerman & Ott, 2013). However, there was a negative aspect of the community program. The main cause of substance dependence in the aboriginal community is the poverty due to unemployment that creates stress in the environment of the family. Thus, the program needed to introduce some intervention in order to increase employment in the community. The program has focused on the treatment of substance dependence but did not provide effective prevention plan excepting the education plan (Moos, 2017). Still, the interventions of the program were helpful to counter the substance dependence and provide better standard of living to the community.

Action for replicating the approaches:

The substance dependence disorder is the problem of most of the community and it is important to be countered it in an effective manner in order to improve the standard of living and provide well-being to the communities. In order to replicate the interventions of the community program it is important to introduce healthy alternatives to the harmful substance and promote healthy practice that is free from alcohol, drugs or others substance abuse. Effective treatment plan need to be provided. Proper education program needs to be arranged in order to create awareness in the community. In order to disseminate the findings of the community program, information regarding the utilization of the program needs to be provided to the people in the community. To support the program a workshop based on education need to be arranged, where information about the positive aspects of the program should be provided (Connors et al., 2013). It could help the people of the community to understand the contribution of the program in reducing substance dependence disorder.

Conclusion:

From the above analysis, it can be concluded that, community problems result in the deprivation of standard of living and one of the serious community problem is substance abuse. It is a serious threat for the aboriginal community and for the other community as well. In order to resolve the community problem, the Timmins Native Friendship Centre has provided a community program known as Aboriginal Alcohol and Drug Worker Program. The program has provided effective interventions in order to reduce the substance abuse in the aboriginal community. In order to counter the issue of substance abuse it is important to replicate the interventions in the community. Proper education and information regarding the contribution of the program need to be provided in order to make people understand about the harmful effects of substance abuse and importance of such program. It could help to create awareness in the community and might be helpful to prevent substance abuse in the community.