Substance abuse is a disease that has an effect on millions of people. Treatment for substance abuse is not meeting the demands of the disease. This is evident from the thousands dying every year from accidental overdoses. The country needs to pay more put more work in fighting this disease through prevention, treatment, and education on the disease of addiction. Individuals are unemployed, going to prison, and dying from this disease.
Advocacy Methods
The population that this author would like to focus on is substance abuse clients. Here are some key facts regarding the population from the state of Ohio. There is a massive opiate epidemic in Ohio currently. “Opiates include both heroin and prescription pain reliever medications (CITE
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In the outpatient and intensive outpatient programs it showed that 72 percent of the clients returned for second visit or second week of their residential program. Then this rate improved close to 85 percent. According to McCarty et., al (2007), “process modifications led to reductions in days to treatment and gains in retention and care (p. 143)”. The study recommend that alcohol and drug treatment facilities can make considerable improvements in their patient’s access to treatment and retention for the small cohorts of clients in brief rapid cycles.
According to Nilsson et. al (2011) suggest that “’social justice advocacy and multicultural competency need to be combined to best serve mental health clients”. Social justice is valuing the objectivity and fairness the resources that help clients. Valuing the rights of the clients and treatment. Social justice helps those clients that do not share the same power in society. Advocacy refers to the steps that counselors take to change or converting the procedure by which decisions are made by the public. These advocacy procedures could affect the governmental, societal, and monetary
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The federal and state government is doing better in treating the addicted person. When this author says “better” the author means better than it was ten years ago; however, more needs to be done in providing more access to treatment for individuals with this disease. With than being said the government (state, local, and federal), needs to spend more time educating the public in the disease and how the addict cannot just stop using. Society continues to criminalize addiction and the addicts themselves. Then when they go to prison they are branded for life. They continue to use because they addict has barriers when it comes to getting a job to better themselves.
Analyze the Impact of Local, State, and National Public Policies on the Quality and Accessibility of Clinical Mental Health Services
The government continues to fund programs that do not have any empirical evidence that they work. For example, there has been scientific evidence that individuals are supporting the harm reduction model; however the government still continues to be provide resistance to this model. Officials that support these harm reduction programs instead of incarceration have been labeled “soft on drugs”.
Identify Advocacy Strategies for Diverse