The Tribune

By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

TWENTY individuals from the public and private sectors on Monday began training to become certified drug treatment professionals in Grand Bahama.

Grand Bahama Health Services (GBHS) is spearheading the training for police officers, school psychologists, social workers at the Department of Social Services, teachers, as well as youth pastors and community leaders.

Through the Colombo Plan International Centre for Credentialing and Education of Addiction Professionals Training (ICCE) programme, GBHS hopes to train a cadre of internationally certified drug treatment and addiction professionals here on the island.

Clinical psychologist Dr Michelle Lundy, an internationally certified addiction professional, said substance abuse and addiction is a global issue, and the overall aim is to build international treatment capacity through training.

“We are training cohorts of 20, and we hope to train at least three groups here in Grand Bahama,” said Dr Lundy, one of the four master trainers facilitating training in Freeport.

The Colombo Programme is a universal treatment curriculum that deals with substance abuse disorders and addiction. At the end of training, participants will be able to identify, treat and counsel persons with substance use and addiction disorders, and a benchmark will have been established for all practitioners in the field.

According to Dr Lundy, some 169 million people globally are addicted to substances.

In the Bahamas, she said that the three most commonly abused substances are alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine.

Ms Lundy noted that there are also other addictive substances such as opioids.

“Ecstasy we know is now creeping up, and we know that our young people are mixing concoctions with cough medicine and using it to get high – so we do have a problem,” she said.

“We have seen increased violence in the Bahamas with substance abuse and addiction, and we know it is affecting the health and mental health of the nation,” she said.

In Freeport, Dr Lundy noted that 80 per cent of the patients admitted to the Diah Ward have a rooted history of substance abuse disorder.

“With this training, we are trying to standardize the way that we treat persons who are addicted to substances so we can have better outcomes,” she said.

Ms Lundy stated that in 2014, the US Embassy’s International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Section partnered with Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre to provide substance treatment training for persons in the Bahamas.

Ms Lundy, Kayla Swain, Shaniqua Smith and Brenda Smith are conducting training in Freeport.

“We have done training in Nassau already, and we hope to move to the Family Islands next year to train persons there. We realise that once we standardise the training, once people learn what addiction is, what substance use is; and once we follow better practices and follow the evidence-based practices, then the outcome will be excellent,” she said.