Addiction Services
There is one addiction counsellor skilled in Aboriginal and mainstream understandings of addiction issues. The Aboriginal values of kindness, honesty, sharing and strength are most important in approaching addiction issues because the symptoms appearing as addiction have root causes in the loss of land, culture, and language experienced by Aboriginal people in Canada. These losses were compounded by residential school experiences and other racist policies that systematically discriminated against Aboriginal peoples. The loss of traditional ways of living that fostered community health and individual well being has resulted in health concerns including abuse of alcohol and drugs and mental health concerns.
The drug and alcohol program does:
- assessments with patients to determine where they are in the stage of addiction
- helps develop treatment plan with patients
- works on the steps of plan with patients with assistance from appropriate team members
- the program refers to external resources (detox; self help programs, residential treatment programs and other community resources)
- revises the treatment plan as patient progresses in healing
The program works closely with people who live on or close to the street, and who have multiple complex medical issues. The majority are multi generational residential school survivors who have suffered physical, mental, emotional and spiritual trauma.
Our team works together to provide the best health care possible for each person. When we work with the person we take into account their family, environment and history. That is, we work with the whole of them, not a just a part of them. We work with the medical community, and other resources in Prince George to help us do this.