Families in Action rebrands substance-use programme

The NGO Families in Action has helped over 200 people deal with substance-abuse issues in the last year. Now, with the launch of its newly renamed Substance Abuse Misuse (SAM) programme, it is hoping to assist and educate more people.

Counselling lead Gerard Baptiste said the change from what was originally the Addiction Support programme came as a result of a change in how substance use and addiction are perceived.

“When the programme began 30 years ago, the literature around substance use and addiction said it was a personality disorder. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) at the time would have recognised it as a personality disorder. We just kept calling people 'addict, addict, addict,' which of course would have created stigma.

“Now in 2024, with the DSM V, it has been recognised that substance use has its genesis in the brain, and therefore it’s no longer looked at as a personality disorder. There’s been a push internationally to begin using a different language.

"What we now speak of is substance-use disorders (SUDs) and people are referred to as substance users and if the person is in fact abusing the substance in very large quantities, they would be referred to as a substance abuser.”

Baptiste said the organisation was looking to rebrand on two planes. One was reducing the stigma associated with substance abuse, and the other was realigning the local language to what was used in the DSM.

“It really is more palatable to someone coming in to think of themselves as a substance abuser as opposed to when I ask them, ‘Hey, are you an addict?’ The common connotation of 'addict' is the person you see in the road lying down, rolling around, homeless.”

Some of the substances and substance categories listed in the DSM are alcohol, caffeine, cannabis, hallucinogens, inhalants, opioids, sedatives, hypnotics, stimulants (including amphetamine-type drugs, cocaine and other stimulants), and tobacco.

The SUM programme has also been revamped in terms of when and what is offered. Baptiste said originally the programme had been offered on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

“On Monday, people would do therapy as a group, on Wednesday we would do psycho-education, where we give you education on substances, and on Friday we would do the 12-step programme.

“In our rebranding phase, we’re now offering the programme over two days, Monday and Wednesday. Monday would still be our group work day and Wednesday would now be a combined day where we combine the 12-step programme, which is an internationally used programme for substance use, into our pyscho-education component.”

Baptiste said the organisation offered psychometric assessments to determine the level of substance use, which is categorised into mild, moderate, and severe.

“A person with a mild substance-use issue might have need for a few sessions. It might be that you’re using a substance for a particular reason. Let’s say your dog died and you decide you can’t sleep and you decide to use Valium, and suddenly you realise you’re unable to stop, so you come to us and we do a little intervention, we get you to come down and you might be fine off of maybe three, four, five sessions.

“With moderate substance-use disorder, which is a few more components, you might find you have to attend our sessions, we might have to refer you to Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, that kind of thing, as additional support. A person with severe substance-abuse
disorder would really have to be referred to in-patient facilities, somewhere like Caura or Mt St Benedict.”

Baptiste said Families in Action also wanted to be a repository of information and training. He said it offered training to companies and schools.

“We have information on emerging drugs. We try to keep on the edge of what is happening out there.

“We do a three-hour substance-abuse training workshop for companies where people are made aware of what are some substances. People are very blown away, because we just think of cannabis, but people aren’t aware there are over 13 substances in the DSM: caffeine is one, tobacco is another, and so on. We show you the effect it has on the brain and give you some of the causes.

“We also do training for supervisors who have to have difficult conversations with employees who might have an issue.”

Baptiste said the organisation had also been going to Servol and other schools and doing presentations. He said it would also be publishing more on social media and in traditional media.

“Going forward, people will be hearing more from us commenting on local issues, drugs in schools, drugs in homes, and they will be seeing from us more scientific, evidence-based materials. We want people to know we’re available.”

Baptiste said over the last five years Families in Action has treated over 150-200 people per year for substance use, with 200 people being treated in 2023.

“We also do a lot of employee assistance programme (EAP) work, we have youth programmes, we have a domestic violence (DV) department that does workshops as well. Across the board, we saw over 1,200 people in the last year, for everything from substance abuse to mental health disorders to doing training for young people to touching people experiencing domestic violence. We’ve had a very good reach in terms of the impact across all of those departments.”

Families in Action has offices in Port of Spain, Arima and Pt Lisas Industrial Estate.

For more information go to https://www.familiesinaction.net/