Community assessment and need analysis
The health program is mainly established in the eastern region of the suburbs in order to reduce the rate at which young individuals are falling prey to substance abuse disorders. They often get engaged in different types of drug and alcohol abuse. Therefore the program is done engage them in different activities like sports, careers and others and also helping them to learn about different coping mechanism. This initiative will help them to develop a bright future free form financial constraints and mental disorders like depression and anxiety (WHO, 2017).
While conducting a research on the substance abuse rates in the different communities in eastern Melbourne it was found that secondary school students are mostly vulnerable with 74% adolescents having consumed alcohol, 15% having used cannabis and 17% using inhalants. The percentage is higher in males than in females. This led them to be exposed to risks like physical injury from falls, road accidents and different types of violence. They are exposed to loss of memory, unwanted sexual activity and others. This had also resulted in delay in social and academic development due to impact on brain development on such adolescents. Long term effects were seen to include cardiovascular diseases, obesity, cancer and different mental disorders (Hawkins, Catalano & Kuklinski, 2014).
Researches conducted have shown that most of the adolescents take up the habit primarily to feel grown up and to keep up with the trend of school groups engaged in such activities and take this lifestyle as a very exciting one. Many have also taken up the habit to cope with academic pressures. Often familial environments engaging violence among parents or similar habit practiced in homes makes them vulnerable to develop the disorder (Patel et al., 2016). Social media exhibiting alcohol as a cool factor often provides negative impact on young individuals. They often tend to take alcohol believing that it releases them of pressure in relationships or career developments. Boredom and crimes are also the determinants that result in development of substance abuse disorder in adolescents.
In the present, there is no proper policy published by the central, federal or local government to handle the issue of substance abuse disorder in the adolescents of Australia including those of eastern Melbourne. However, several position papers have been published by the Australian Psychological in the year 2005 and then in the year 2008. They have discussed in details about the various effects that the disorder has on individuals along with the various determinants that are responsible for the disorder. They have also provided a large number of interventions along with a 12 step program and therapeutic communities and others which had helped many ordinary citizens to gather ideas about how to cope with the disorder. As the spread of awareness is less, therefore effectivity of the position paper is not that high.
The community of eastern Melbourne has huge number of resources which if modified properly can be extremely useful in the management program of adolescents with substance abuse disorder. There is a large of number of community centres which can be arranged for holding meetings and workshops for such individuals. They can be called here for career counselling sessions, discussion on present trends, counselling sessions about their personal disturbances, for holding meetings and others (WHO, 2014). Besides, digital libraries can be used for collecting resources, information and others by the managers, workers and others. Local sporting clubs are also involved to conduct interesting gaming session with the adolescent to overcome their boredom. Different supports from peers and schools can also be arranged for such individuals (Jonas et al., 2014). Online programs like Beyond Blue, Counselling Online and different courses can also be made to available to the adolescents so that they can come forward and take resort to such health resources.
Planning
The main goal of the project would be to help the young adolescents of the eastern suburbs of Melbourne to overcome their substance abuse disorders which they develop to overcome different types of pressures in lives (DiClemente, Hansen & Ponton, 2013). The project will educate them about the ill effects of their habits and will help them to take up alternative activities. These activities will help them to distract themselves from drugs and alcohols and provide support that will help them to cope with pressures of everyday lives.
The goals would be to ensure that the schools keep separate classes to discuss the health effects that alcohol results and provide them support. The communities should introduce brochures and templates to aware the local citizens of the ill effects and the initiative as they can take at the personal level to help such adolescents. Workshops will be set to attract help the adolescents to understand what alternative ways they can take up like involving in sports, taking music classes, swimming, involving in charitable works, develop academic careers, talk with counsellors to overcome depression, learn about how to differentiate the good and evil on social media and others (Williams et al., 2014). Counselling sessions will also be held to help adolescents in depression and anxiety to overcome their mental issues and be victorious in life (Wahlbeck, 2015).
In order to accomplish the activities, proper monitoring bodies will be set up. It would be their duty to monitor the effect of the intervention taken and to analyse the success levels. Response from the target population will be noted in order to assess whether the objectives set are really helping the target population to get over their bad habits. Different schools, libraries, local communities, charities and other present in the communities will be consulted and involved. The collaborative approach from everyone would help in development of a system where a perfect environment would be created that would help the teenagers to overcome their disorders and live a better quality life (Larkin, Felitti & Anda, 2014). Continuous evaluation of the activities of every stakeholder will ensure that the best interventions will be provided.
After implementation of the initiatives, a total of 6 months will be taken for complete evaluation of the steps taken in order to understand whether the results are positive or negative. If the results are positive, then the project should be continued for about another 6 months which will ensure total deletion of the issue. If the results of evaluation are negative, alterations should be done accordingly and waited for another 6 months to assess their effects.
Different models can be used while promoting health education among target population and prevent them from getting engaged in harmful practices. Ecological models, relapse prevention model, stages of change model, social cognitive model and theory of reasoned action or planned behaviour can be used. However in the present project the health belief model will be apt to bring success to the project. This model pays importance to five important steps which include gathering information by conducting researches on health needs and identifying the population at risks. The following step involves conveying information to the target population about the harmful consequences associated with their risky behaviours. The third point involves proper communication with the target population about the recommended steps that they can take and highlighting the benefits that they will receive. Fourth step involves the provision of assistance for proper identification and sequentially reducing the barriers to action. The last step mainly consisted of demonstrating actions with the help of skill development initiatives and involved provision of support that promoted self efficacy and chances of successful positive behavioural changes (Sandler et al., 2014).
Implementation
Creating a supportive environment in eastern Melbourne is important for bringing best results. An environment will be created that will promote awareness among adults who will inevitably monitor their wards’ need and practices. Monitoring bodies will be implemented who will conduct research about the efficacy of the awareness program. Moreover important help lines will be provided to help vulnerable adolescents and also family members who are unable to control their children (Reikert, Ockene & Pbert, 2013). Schools, social groups, communities, advertisements will be engaged in creating an environment where this substance abuse practice will be strictly criticised and vulnerable adolescents will be counselled to solve their difficulties. Proper management of depression, anxiety, emotion and other feelings will be handled tenderly and care, affection and love will be provided to heal their pains and sufferings.
The young adolescents suffering from substrate abuse disorder first needs to understand, that alcohol and others are not the only resort and do little in solving problems. In return, they are destroying their academic careers and a bright future by depending on them. They need to face their problem bravely and solve issues independently. If not possible, they can always come forward and ask for help without being ashamed. They should never succumb to academic pressure and consult with their teachers about how to overcome the pressure. Peer pressure or trends on social media are eye washing substances that are done to increase the sale of alcohol products and are harms the physiological system of the body causing permanent damage. A person who wants to develop a bright future should never succumb to alcohol consumption which can doom their future by obstructing their academic and social life. (Chan et al., 2014).
Family members play a huge role in developing a successful future of a child and hence they need to be careful about their children’s practices and monitor their activities and provide them with good culture. Charities need to lend their hands in the noble projects and extend financial aid to such projects and also to vulnerable homes where financial constraints are affecting lives. They should also initiate awareness programs to stop the trend of substance abuse among teenagers (Roy-Byme et al., 2014). Moreover the government should also publish policies to handle the situation and introduce new initiatives that will urge adolescents to leave their habits and develop a better future. Besides, schools should educate their students in such a way that they can understand the harmful effects of thus habit and inculcate good culture so that they can develop a better future.
In order to know that the goals of the initiatives are met or not, proper evaluation strategies are to be set. These strategies would involve a questionnaire format which will help in understanding the acceptance of the main project principles by the family members. Their response will help to understand how their children are responding to the interventions. From the questionnaires, one can prepare the data that will help to know about the statistical information about the reduction of the number of individuals participating in intervention programmes. Moreover, the meetings, workshops, counselling sessions and others arranged for them will try to keep records of the overall health and development of each of the clients. Proper meetings with the heads of these programmes will help to know better. A feedback system should be initiated where feedback from community people will be collected to have an idea about their acceptance levels of the program (Wahlbeck, 2015).
When the above mentioned strategies that were taken to evaluate the results will yield a positive result, then one can become assured that the interventions are indeed working. The participation of the young adolescents in swimming classes, sports classes, and extracurricular activities will help to have an idea that they are gradually shifting their focus from alcohol to different activities which will make them a better future. The school authorities should also be contacted at a regular basis to keep a record of the initiative that they are adapting and the effects that they are having on the people.
The individuals will be daily monitored not at an individual level but as a group in order to understand their response. They should be interviewed in details about how their life has changed after they are participating in different programs. Moreover, their behaviour should be thoroughly analysed to see whether they are overcoming depression and anxiety. This could be well understood by talking to them in an open interaction. Regular records should be kept which is important to find out the effectivity of the result at the end of 6 months.
Surveys, interviews, statistical data, records collected from the program, centres, workshops, community clubs, schools, and rehabs should be involved. Besides, academic developments, developments in mental health, overcoming the need to alcohols, infusion of proper health education and its effects will help in proper evaluation about the success of the results (Allen et al., 2014).
Conclusion:
If the above four domains are conducted sequentially with skilled individuals and mentors, the program will bring best results for the future of the young generation of the community.
References:
Allen, J., Balfour, R., Bell, R., & Marmot, M. (2014). Social determinants of mental health. International Review of Psychiatry, 26(4), 392-407.
Chan, Y. F., Huang, H., Bradley, K., & Unützer, J. (2014). Referral for substance abuse treatment and depression improvement among patients with co-occurring disorders seeking behavioral health services in primary care. Journal of substance abuse treatment, 46(2), 106-112.
DiClemente, R. J., Hansen, W. B., & Ponton, L. E. (Eds.). (2013). Handbook of adolescent health risk behavior. Springer Science & Business Media.
Hawkins, J. D., Catalano, R. F., & Kuklinski, M. R. (2014). Communities that care. In Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice (pp. 393-408). Springer New York.
Jonas, D. E., Amick, H. R., Feltner, C., Bobashev, G., Thomas, K., Wines, R., … & Garbutt, J. C. (2014). Pharmacotherapy for adults with alcohol use disorders in outpatient settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Jama, 311(18), 1889-1900.
Larkin, H., Felitti, V. J., & Anda, R. F. (2014). Social work and adverse childhood experiences research: Implications for practice and health policy. Social work in public health, 29(1), 1-16.
Patel, V., Chisholm, D., Parikh, R., Charlson, F. J., Degenhardt, L., Dua, T., … & Lund, C. (2016). Addressing the burden of mental, neurological, and substance use disorders: key messages from Disease Control Priorities. The Lancet, 387(10028), 1672-1685.
Riekert, K. A., Ockene, J. K., & Pbert, L. (Eds.). (2013). The handbook of health behavior change. Springer Publishing Company.
Roy-Byrne, P., Bumgardner, K., Krupski, A., Dunn, C., Ries, R., Donovan, D., … & Joesch, J. M. (2014). Brief intervention for problem drug use in safety-net primary care settings: a randomized clinical trial. Jama, 312(5), 492-501.
Sandler, I., Wolchik, S. A., Cruden, G., Mahrer, N. E., Ahn, S., Brincks, A., & Brown, C. H. (2014). Overview of meta-analyses of the prevention of mental health, substance use, and conduct problems. Annual review of clinical psychology, 10, 243-273.
Wahlbeck, K. (2015). Public mental health: the time is ripe for translation of evidence into practice. World Psychiatry, 14(1), 36-42.
Williams, R., Aspinall, R., Bellis, M., Camps-Walsh, G., Cramp, M., Dhawan, A., … & Hickman, M. (2014). Addressing liver disease in the UK: a blueprint for attaining excellence in health care and reducing premature mortality from lifestyle issues of excess consumption of alcohol, obesity, and viral hepatitis. The Lancet, 384(9958), 1953-1997.
World Health Organization. (2014). Global status report on alcohol and health 2014. World Health Organization.
World Health Organization. (2017). mhGAP intervention Guide for mental, neurological and substance use disorders in non-specialized health settings. Cancer.
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