DRUG-ADDICTED YOUTH CAN ACCESS NEW 90-DAY REHAB

Drug withdrawal services for youth in the mid-Island, put in jeopardy
after the dissolution of the Nanaimo Alcohol Drug And Prevention
Treatment Society earlier this year, are back on track.

For reasons still unclear, ADAPT closed its doors in March. At that
time the Vancouver Island Health Authority announced that it was
looking for another agency to take over the withdrawal management
services run by ADAPT. It was announced recently that Nanaimo and
Area Resource Services for Families will take over permanently.

Other programs run by ADAPT, such as youth and family counselling,
will be run by VIHA's youth and family services office.

Gord Cote, executive director of NARSF, said that the John Howard
Society temporarily ran the withdrawal services after the demise of
ADAPT, and will work with them to get the programs running in about six weeks.

NARSF, said Cote, will not be running a medical detoxification
process, which would be about 10 days, but a 90-day supportive
residency detox program. Cote said there are now medical detox
facilities for youths in both Victoria and Vancouver.

The process, he said, will focus on rest, nutrition, education around
substance abuse and creating a strategy to keep the youths from
returning to drug abuse. "It's the first phase of what we would call
a stabilization phase," said Cote.

He was careful to distinguish what ADAPT did, with VIHA taking over
the counselling and education section of their operation, from what
NARSF will be doing.

"It's not like ADAPT in any sense, it's quite separated out," he said.