MONEY TO BE USED FOR DRUG TREATMENT BEDS AND COUNSELLING EFFORTS

Money allocated to fight youth addictions in B.C. will see new
treatment beds and more youth addiction workers coming to the South
Okanagan.

The province last week announced that it gave the Interior Health
Authority $1.2 million to fight drug problems, including $362,000 to
deal with crystal meth addictions and $899,000 to battle youth addictions.

That money will pay for two short-term residential beds, urban and
rural counselling programs, a new prevention co-ordinator in the South
Okanagan and a dependency nurse-clinician to work specifically with
crystal meth addicts throughout the Okanagan, said Ira Roness, senior
manager for alcohol and drug services for the Okanagan for IHA.

Work has already begun on bringing the new resources online, said
Roness.

Interior Health issued a request for proposals from social service
agencies in the South Okanagan for the two residential beds six weeks
ago, said Roness. The beds will give young people a place to go to
deal with any issues related to their addictions, he said.

"We've asked them to come to us with some ideas they might have in
terms of locations and what those beds will look like," said Roness.
"We just wanted to leave it as open as possible because we recognize
that social service agencies might have some different ideas that we
might not have known about."

The deadline for proposals was last week and while he couldn't comment
on the number of proposals received or when an announcement could be
expected, Roness said there had been a "fairly good response."

The rural outreach counsellor is expected to spend time in communities
such as Princeton, Keremeos and Oliver, which do not have full-time
dedicated youth counselling services, said Roness.

In Penticton, a new urban outreach counsellor will work together with
existing services, such as those provided by Pathways Addiction
Resource Centre, to work with youth on the street struggling with
dependencies or addictions to street youth, he said.

The crystal meth dependency nurse clinician will not only provide
assessment and treatment services for crystal meth users, but also
support other youth drug addiction workers who work with people with
amphetamine addictions, said Roness.

Funding to tackle drug addictions, especially crystal meth, is always
welcome, but it shouldn't overshadow other addictions, said Danny
Highly, substance abuse prevention co-ordinator.

"From a prevention perspective, the consensus in the field is that
yes, crystal meth is a drug we need to be looking at," he said. "But
at the same time, we also still need to be really concerned with
tobacco and alcohol."

The Ministry of Community and Family Development will also hire a
concurrent disorder clinician for the South Okanagan, who will work
with youth that are dealing with both mental illness and addictions.

The funding is part of the $8 million the provincial government put
into treatment options and youth addiction services across the
province, which included $6 million for youth addictions treatment and
$2 million for crystal meth treatment programs.