WANADA Essay: Addressing Homelessness And Substance Misuse Through The Psychodynamic Model.

The Western Australian Network of Alcohol and Other Drug Agencies (WANADA)

Homelessness is an issue that bring so many symptoms with it. Housing facility is a primary need for every individual. If it not available properly, it shall affect the mental health of that individual that could cause substance abuse. The mental illness and substance misuse mostly inter-relate each other. People suffering from homelessness are having high rate of mental illness sue to the daily stress facing to manage a roof for them. Due to this trauma and stress, they started high drug and alcohol consumption that make their mental issues bugger (Lippert & Lee, 2015). To reduce the substance misuse issues, the Western Australian Network of Alcohol and other Drug Agencies (WANADA) work on these causes and help the homeless and mentally ill persons to recover from the issues. WANADA is an agency that collaborated with other organisations to help the people needed drug or alcohol related services and help them to recover from the addiction. It provided the services to the other agencies, young generation, hospitals, public health, and other sectors who work on the drug related issues (WANADA, 2022). This report shall discuss the issues the client of WANADA is facing and the model WANADA used to resolve them. The report shall also discuss about the AOD programs WANADA organized to provide best services to their clients.

Western Australian Network of Alcohol and other Drug Agencies (WANADA) is a non-profit agency based in Western Australia. It works on improving the well-being and health of the families, individuals, and communities in the region impacted by alcohol and other drugs. It was established in 1984 and has worked effortlessly to promote the health and well-being of the citizens in Western Australia (WANADA, 2022). The organization addresses the social and health issue of alcohol and drug use in Western Australia by providing vital information about the drugs in Western Australia (Lundgren et al., 2018). Therefore, the organization employs the Psychodynamic Model as an evidence-based model to address various issues of the residents. The evidence-based model helps the agency analyze and evaluate the drug issues and find out why the drug consumption becomes an addiction for the people. The organization adopts various models, but this paper analyses the psychodynamic model.

Sigmund Freud had given this theory to relate the addiction from the childhood of the addicted person. The childhood environment is an influential factor that leads a person to addiction and mental illness. Child abuse has a high percentage that leads to mental illness and results from drug and alcohol consumption. According to this theory, counseling is a key treatment method for treating the mental illness that could help the patient stop taking excessive drugs and alcohol (Alvarez-Monjaras et al., 2019). Freud was dedicated to finding solutions for mental health problems and psychological disorders which he was motivated by the clinical observation of the traumatic events among people. The theory provides an understanding of human interactions and behaviors. Besides, through personality theory, we can easily understand human behaviors by explaining various human developmental concepts and individual behavioral changes having a major influence on addressing the issues presented by the community in Western Australia. Homelessness, mental health, and AOD lead to depression and anxiety, significantly affecting the Australians. The personalities of children and adults change due to changes in their dynamic psychophysical systems. Stephenson (2018) argues that the theory has been used to provide various psychological interventions to people with addiction and mental health issues. Sigmund Freud presented the theory based on the interactions of the id, ego, and superego, which form the components of the mind. Therefore, WANADA uses psychodynamic theory to address the psychological factors that alcohol and other drugs cause in Western Australia and issues of mental health and homeless making the lives of the Australians better and healthy.

Using the Psychodynamic Model to Address Substance Misuse and Homelessness

WANADA an agency that work for the people who are suffering from substance-misuse. WANADA support the people through analysing their personal issues and find out the reasons of their excessive consumption. WANADA include the prevention, rehabilitation, treatment, and research on AOD based people and other agencies. Mental illness and homelessness play an important part in making the people addictive to the drug and alcohol. To analyse these factors, WANADA used the and Psychodynamic model to treat the people through providing the professional services for mental health and homelessness. They use the counselling and hospitalization to treat their patients and provide rehabilitation centres for addictive people (Young, 2019). The psychodynamic model helped the agency to reduce harm that a patient’s life. Whereas, with the help of socio-cultural method, WANADA is helping the people suffering from AOD, mental health, and homelessness. As WANADA adopted the socio-cultural method in vast terms and analyse the issues related to AOD, mental health, and homelessness.

The psychodynamic model helps in studying the personality of a person. Freud, an Australian neurologist, developed the theory focusing on the person's unconscious mind. Most people undergo various traumatic experiences in life, sometimes from their childhood and others through the unexpected. Such traumatic feelings, emotions, and thoughts cause anxiety and uneasiness in a person, leading to stress and psychological damage (Lippert & Lee, 2015). AOD abuse, homeliness, and mental health issues also cause emotions, feelings, and thoughts, which are repressed in people's unconscious minds affecting the lives of the children and the adults in Australians. Freud addresses the issue by studying their minds, the unconscious, the subconscious, and the conscious mind. Understanding the functions of these parts of a person's mind helps them find a solution for the problem by releasing repressed thoughts, memories, and emotions and requires critical thinking about an individual's life compared to ordinary imaginations (Josephs & McLeod, 2014). Freud discusses that using the psychodynamic model involves understanding the id, superego, and ego. The id is the unconscious source that best describes primitive actions and desires and often explains the reasons for many people's aggressive impulses, dependency, and sexual behaviors.

According to Freud, the id has both death and survival instincts which often drive people to engage in violence and other destructive behaviors. It also causes fear and anxiety in people. The second section is the superego, which interjects societal morals made up of the subconscious mind. It encourages an individual to act morally upright (Breger, 2017). The third section is the ego which majorly satisfies the id. It provides a sense of self and mediation of the realities and often describes the defense mechanism such as sublimation, denial, and repression, helping the person address their problem (Kirby, Benishek & Tabit, 2016). The model helps WANADA meet the aim of helping people and AOD agencies by developing the policies and programs related to the AOD, assisting its members by raising their voices through the psychodynamic model.

WANADA also aims to reduce the harm associated with drug and alcohol use by providing support to children, parents, and caregivers by addressing the impact of AODs on the social and health problems of people in Western Australia. They offer counseling services requiring specialists to employ the psychodynamic model to address the issues "Community," 2022). Therefore, those requiring the services of AOD are the key stakeholders of WANADA. The aim of serving their stakeholders includes analyzing the problems of mental illness and homelessness and resolving these issues through different policies and programs.             

The Role of WANADA in Addressing Substance Misuse and Homelessness

The people addicted from alcohol and drugs are usually facing the mental and social cultural issues that made them to consume the drugs or alcohol. Persons having the issue of homelessness in their life faced high rate of multimorbidity. Multimorbidity refers to facing more than two illness by the same person at the same point of time. The persons facing the problem of homelessness highly suffer the mental illness with high consumption of AOD. 

Especially the case of chronic homelessness increases the rate of mental illness of an individual. The mental illness led to the substance abuse and the addiction of any drug or alcohol went to its high-risk stage. Persons facing chronic homelessness were facing the issue of not having roof on their head from the period of one year and more (Chung, Lee, & Lee, 2019). As housing facility is a primary essential need of every person, not having the same increased the trauma and mental issues in an individual. The person went into high risk in the case of chronic homelessness (Vallesi et al., 2021). The younger age facing the issue of homelessness are having high rate of risk of mental illness and AOD. In a survey, it showed that the population of average age of 42.8 years are facing the issue of mental illness more in numbers as compared to the population of other groups. Mental trauma and stress increase the consumption of alcohol and drugs and it became an addiction for the population of younger group. The addiction destroyed the economic balance of an individual and lead to high rate of stress that result an exaggerated form of mental illness. The people who are suffering from addiction of AOD are the influential stakeholders of WANADA (Polcin, 2015). The people, who are facing AOD, mental illness, and homelessness issues all together, are at more risk and need the collaborated services that WANADA is providing. WANADA has a vast range of area to work as it includes the organisations who are drug-specific, community health sectors, general youth, primary health organisations, hospitals and other service centres who provide the drug-related services.

As discussed above, WANADA serves the people and agencies acquiring the AOD services. It helped the agencies to provide a structural framework and policies related to the AOD. It provides services like helping people who are suffering from AOD issues, consultation services, hospitality, leadership, and advocacy to AOD sectors in Western Australia. WANADA brought the people together from the sectors related to AOD, mental health and homelessness in the area of north-west. The event that called up these people had named as Beyond Barriers: Visions of Meaningful Collaboration. The key features running this program were collaboration, connection, empathy, and hope. The collaboration program joins the hands of relevant professionals and share their intentions to reduce the AOD related diseases (nwmphn.gov.au, 2020). The program continues with another conclusive program named as Beyond Barriers and Boundary Spanners. This program implemented the theme of last program and made professionals to participate in live treatment and providing services. The aim of this program focused on person-centred care and provided care and empathy to the aimed groups facing the problems related to AOD, mental health and homelessness. North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network (NWMPHN) provided the funds to WANADA to execute these collaborative programmes and call the manager together to provide their services to the needed people.

Conclusion

Another project in which the WANADA has worked was AOD Sector Capacity Building. This project has initiated in the year of 2008 and funded by the Australian Health Department. The WANADA is providing various treatment services in this project. The Commonwealth has also funded this project through Primary Health Networks. All the departments are focusing on the building high service providers to facilitate the generations got affected by mental illness and suffering from substance abuse. AOD Family Violence Reform Resources is a program that help the women who are facing the issues of homelessness, mental illness, and AOD. The women who faced the family violence suffered homelessness and has already faced trauma due to this. The trauma converted into mental health illness and results into substance misuse (Duke & Searby, 2019). Substance misuse made these women uncontrollable and results into different mental issues like hypertensions, hallucinations etc. that make their mental health at extreme risk.

Conclusion

In conclusion, WANADA has employed a psychodynamic model to address the issues of homelessness, mental health, and AOD abuse making the residents of Western Australia. The model improves the emotional abilities of people, enhances moral values, and helps people make better decisions that would improve their health because Freud's believed that human personality is built from social interactions, which changes the person's character traits which WANADA easily applies during psychological interventions to address the presented issues. Therefore, WANADA analyses the causes of drug and alcohol consumption and helps them treat the issues through provisions of various programs that collaborate the professional and manager to provide the services of AOD. 

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