National Native Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program
2005
ISBN: 0-662-69416-3
Cat. No.: H128-1/05-443-22
Help on accessing alternative formats, such as PDF, MP3 and WAV files, can be obtained in the alternate format help section.
 (880K)
The National Native Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program (NNADAP) is now in its 22nd year of existence as the Government of Canada's primary program to address alcohol and substance abuse in First Nations and Inuit communities. The program was designed as part of a comprehensive federal strategy to provide residential treatment, prevention, training and research services.
The NNADAP provides a balance of professional, para-professional and administrative personnel to support prevention, treatment and aftercare programs. NNADAP is based on non-medical treatment services described as post-detoxification primary care and counselling. Social and cultural components specific to First Nations and Inuit people are also elements of NNADAP.
The main objective of the NNADAP is to support First Nations and Inuit people and their communities in establishing and delivering programs aimed at arresting and offsetting high levels of alcohol, drug, and solvent abuse among their target populations living on-reserve.
The NNADAP is delivered by First Nations and Inuit organizations, and has a network of 52 native treatment programs, representing approximately 700 inpatient treatment beds. As well, there are more than 550 alcohol and other drug abuse community-based programs. Health Canada is providing resources for 702 community-based prevention workers.
The community-based programs supported through the NNADAP vary from one First Nations and Inuit community to another, depending on each community's needs, size and the availability of skilled workers. The NNADAP is engaged in three major types of activities:
- Prevention – a series of awareness activities undertaken to prevent serious alcohol and other drug abuse problems. Examples of primary prevention activities include public awareness campaigns, public meetings, development of school curriculum content on alcohol and other drug abuse, media relations, cultural and spiritual events.
- Intervention – a series of activities aimed at dealing with existing abuse problems at the earliest possible stage. Types of intervention include recreation activities for youth, discussion groups, social programs, referrals to treatment programs and native spiritual and cultural programs.
- Aftercare – a series of activities intended to help people prevent a recurrence of alcohol or other drug abuse problems. Aftercare initiatives include counselling, sharing circles, support groups, crisis intervention, support and outreach visits, referrals for detoxification or other treatment, social services, and band services referrals.
NNADAP's link to Canada's Drug Strategy
The recruitment of qualified workers for First Nations and Inuit addictions programs and services has been identified as a priority activity for NNADAP. A 1999 survey revealed that 52% of NNADAP workers had not been educated beyond the secondary school level. In the 1998 General Review of NNADAP, the following human resource problems were identified:
- Inconsistent training content and accessibility to training across jurisdictions; and
- A lack of adequately trained personnel both in prevention and treatment
Under the Canada's Drug Strategy, $5.3M over five years has been allocated to assist in the certification, accreditation, recruitment and retention for addictions workers and to increase the number of certified training programs accessible to First Nations and Inuit treatment centre addictions workers.
To learn more about Canada's Drug Strategy, please visit www.healthcanada.gc.ca/cds
|
