Sunday, April 19, 2009

Call for alcohol rehab model rollout Across NT

. Sunday, April 19, 2009

The Central Australian Aboriginal Congress wants its alcohol rehabilitation model applied to remote communities across the Northern Territory.

The congress has been running a non-residential treatment service in Alice Springs during the past year.

Under the model, clients are prescribed a drug to break alcohol dependence, given cognitive behaviour therapy by a psychologist and follow-up visits by an Aboriginal support worker.

The organisation's John Boffa says he is hoping the next $8 million in Council of Australian Governments (COAG) funding to be spent in the NT will be used to apply the model in remote communities.

"To provide the same service to people where they live throughout central Australia and I think, given the amount of investment that's coming into the alcohol sector, it's vitally important and more efficient to ensure that services are decentralised and they are on the ground in communities where people live," he said.

"We think that there should be one psychologist for every 1,500 Aboriginal people across the Northern Territory, so that means all of the larger Aboriginal health services would have their own psychologist and their own Aboriginal family support workers.

"Those psychologists would be able to work with patients who have addictions who are wanting to get off grog or other drugs but also patients with mental illness."

The congress is part of the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance of the NT, which is meeting the NT and federal governments in a few weeks to discuss its proposed model for rehabilitation

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