Date of News:
July 15, 2008Presentation Title
Innovations in Addiction Services: Applying community partnerships to develop and implement cultural and ethnic addiction services
Presenters
Felix Munger, MES – Manager, Scarborough Addiction Services Partnership
Zarsanga Popal, MSW – Health Promoter, Community Resource Connections of Toronto
Date
October 29 - 31
Abstract
Issue:
The majority of Canadian addiction treatment services as well as best practices are geared towards white, male, middle-class clients, hence neglecting the particular needs of ethno-culturally diverse communities. In a time when western countries experience a rise in immigration, this poses a predicament given that research associates many immigration experiences with addictions and that certain urban areas are developing high density of immigrant diversity.
Description:
Over the past 6 years, a Toronto community (Scarborough), as a first in Canada, has spearheaded an innovative community-based funding program to engage diverse communities to develop and implement their own addiction services. In this capacity, the Scarborough Addiction Services Partnership (SASP) (trustee: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) has funded culturally responsive addiction services in the Somali, Afghan, South Asian, Aboriginal, Tamil, and other communities.
Lessons Learned:
In 2007, SASP engaged in a three-part evaluation: community-based participatory research on the partnership, review of statistics of 6 years, and process evaluation of two cultural specific programs (Afghan and Tamil). Despite several limitations, we found that community-based development of services for ethnoculturally diverse communities has many advantages and, notwithstanding program-specific difficulties, has tremendous potential including replication.
Next Steps:
We are currently planning to develop a model of community-driven service development and implementation and to engage in more detailed research to expand and share our ability to assist the creation of community-based culturally appropriate addiction services.
