Category Archives: Professional News

Abstracts closing soon for BOSCAR symposium

“On 18-19 February 2009 the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) is hosting a two-day symposium in Sydney to celebrate our 40th anniversary.

The symposium will focus on the contribution that research can make to criminal justice administration and law and order policy.

A limited number of speaker slots are available in concurrent sessions. We would like to invite any Australian researcher currently conducting research into crime, criminal justice or any allied field to submit an abstract.

Those interested in presenting at the symposium should email the title of their paper, the name(s) of the presenters, a contact phone number and an abstract of no more than 200 words to BOCSAR no later than 11 July 2008. The email address to which this material should be sent is bocsar_symposium@agd.nsw.gov.au

Full details and registration information is available on the website: www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/bocsar_symposium

Please direct inquiries to bocsar_symposium@agd.nsw.gov.au or phone 02 9231 9190. “

Comorbidity Professional Development Scholarships

“COMORBIDITY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SCHOLARSHIPS: FOR ALCOHOL AND OTHER DRUG (AOD) AND MENTAL HEALTH (MH) WORKERS

The National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction (NCETA) is pleased to announce the third round of Comorbidity Professional Development Scholarships.

The Australian Government has allocated approximately $3.6 million per annum to 2011-12 for the National Comorbidity Initiative (NCI).

The Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) and Mental Health (MH) Comorbidity Professional Development Scholarships program has been developed as part of this initiative. The program has been allocated $2.1 million and is coordinated by NCETA on behalf of the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.

The Comorbidity Professional Development Scholarships are open to Alcohol and Other Drug and Mental Health workers employed in non-government organisations. The initiative aims to enhance workers professional skills and knowledge across the comorbidities of AOD and Mental Health by providing funding to support eligible workers to undertake relevant professional development and/or training.

Round 3 Scholarships for 2008 are scheduled as follows:

Round Opens
Application Closing Date
Announcement of Awards
Monday 28 July 2008
Monday 25 August 2008
Monday 27 October 2008

Please refer to the enclosed flyer.

Application details, guidelines and related information can be found at: http://www.nceta.flinders.edu.au/projects/comorbidity.html“

Online survey: young adult drinking behaviour

I received today the following message from Sara Allen at Swinburne University:

Hi, we are researchers at Swinburne University inviting young adults to participate in this online survey relating to young adult drinking behaviour. The purpose of this study is to obtain a deeper understanding of the motives behind young adults’ drinking behaviour. While much emphasis has been given to the negative aspects, we are interested also in how alcohol may be used in a positive way such as using it as a tool for widening a person’s range of life experience. It is anticipated that your responses will enable us to develop a greater understanding of the motives behind drinking in young adults and the way personality factors may influence these motives.

Participants need to be between the ages of 18 and 30 and drink alcohol. If you fit these criteria it would be greatly appreciated if you considered completing this questionnaire and being a part of our study.

The questionnaire will be completed online at http://opinio.online.swin.edu.au/s?s=4269 and should take approximately 30 minutes to complete. Your participation is completely voluntary and if you choose to take part, you may discontinue at any time. If you do take part, please answer the questionnaire honestly, to the best of your ability. All answers are completely anonymous, as there is no way for anyone to trace the identity of those who complete the survey.

If you are interested in completing the questionnaire please rip off a copy of the link. Alternatively if you know someone else who you think may be interested please direct them to the appropriate link.
Thanks for your time and for considering this study!

Sara Allen (Student Researcher)
Dr. Roslyn Galligan (Supervisor)

International Addiction Summit

“International Addiction Summit 10-12 July 2008
Melbourne, Australia
4 weeks to go!

The International Addiction Summit is gaining more stream as we get closer to the date. This exciting event has drawn over 400 delegates from Australia, New Zealand, USA, Japan, Canada, Nepal, Europe and Iran. There are spaces remaining!

For more information and on line registration please visit our web site: www.addictionsummit.org

The post-summit workshops are filling fast as well.

Carlo DiClemente – Addiction and Change FULL
David Hodgins – Fundamentals of Gambling Problems
Wiliam Miller – Introduction to Motivational Interviewing
Theresa Moyers & Joel Porter – Using Client Language to Improve MI Practice
Allan Zuckoff – Engaging the Difficult-to-Engage FULL”

Free Psychostimulants Training Course for Health Professionals in Northern Territory

From Turning Point:

“A series of one-day training courses on Psychostimulants have been funded by the Commonwealth. These free courses are available to a broad range of health and welfare workers . The aim of the project is to assist health professionals such as medical practitioners, nurses, mental health workers and alcohol and drug workers to manage and treat users of psychostimulants (speed, base, ice, MDMA, cocaine). A series of one-day courses are being delivered nationally. These will be coordinated by Turning Point but delivered by specialist staff from individual states and territories.

Two courses have recently been organised in the Northern Territory. A course overview is provided below. Details of course locations, delivery schedules and the registration process are available at www.turningpoint.org.au – use the link to from GO to WHOA.

Please feel free to contact Kieran Connolly on kieranc@turningpoint.org.au for further information.

Module 1 Introduction

By the end of this module participants will be able to identify:
· what psychostimulants are
· concerns about psychostimulant use
· why people take psychostimulants
· how psychostimulants affect people
· how psychostimulants are taken
– frameworks for responding to psychostimulant use

Module 2 Pharmacology

By the end of this module participants will be able to identify:
· what psychostimulants are
· influences on drug effects
· common psychostimulant effects
– common features of withdrawal

Module 3 Epidemiology and risks

By the end of this module participants will be able to identify:
· the history of psychostimulant use
· current prevalence of use
– risks associated with psychostimulant use

Module 4 Responding to psychostimulant use

By the end of this module, participants will be able to identify:
· effective ways to raise the issue of psychostimulant use
· behavioural indicators of psychostimulant use
· physical indicators of psychostimulant use
· emergency response situations
· appropriate strategies for the management of intoxication
· mental health issues
· strategies to manage agitated behaviour
· strategies to reduce harm at various harm points
– appropriate treatment strategies”

Qwitter – will Web 2.0 bring ATOD benefits?

I noticed an interesting post on lifehacker about the use of Twitter in smoking cessation, hence the name Qwitter.

The premise of the approach is that Twitter allows an individual to type short snippets about their progress with quitting and it all sits there nicely for others to view as well as providing a history for the quitter to hopefully motivate themselves with. Your progress is actually tracked by Qwitter who add your information to an individual progress chart.

It’s an innovative approach to smoking cessation and that’s interesting on its own. What’s even more interesting is the growth of Web 2.0 technologies in the health field. In the ATOD field we usually don’t have the luxury of considering new technologies to assist us in our work but if government doesn’t start funding such research and development, we’re going to find a lot of for-profit Qwitters populating the landscape.

And for those of you out there working in the field that think things like Qwitter are ‘gimicky’ – you’re right, but only partly. Web 2.0 technologies and whatever comes after it are going to shape what we do as health and welfare professionals in significant ways. Whether it happens in two years or ten years, we need to start thinking about our approach.

New online journal with fetal alcohol focus

I received this notice over the weekend:

“NEW Online peer reviewed FASD Journal!!

http://www.motherisk.org/FAR/

On November 1, 2007, the Journal of FAS International – JFAS Int – was amalgamated with the Canadian Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, a peer-review journal. The section dedicated to FASD is called Fetal Alcohol Research (FAR). Research published in CJCP/FAR is indexed in PubMed – Medline. The amalgamated CJCP/FAR will continue to be web-based and freely available. ”

Daily Dose close to death

Daily Dose is one of the world’s best ATOD sites and it’s looking like its days are numbered. The full announcement can be found here but I’ve reproduced it below to save Daily Dose the bandwidth (we get hundreds of views of each story we publish on the Drug Blog):

“Daily Dose will close at end of month – unless …

We are truly sorry that we have to make the following announcement.

Unless sufficient funding can be obtained, then we have been left with no option other than to close down Daily Dose at the end of March. We appreciate that the vast majority of you are not aware of the nature of our funding crisis.

WIRED has maintained Daily Dose for over seven years, publishing every single day. Our email service has over 6,000 subscribers worldwide, the site receives over 800,000 hits per month, and we are continually amazed by the positive comments we receive on a regular basis.

However, during this seven-year period, we have survived either on a low level of funding or no money at all. Even though last year was one of our best, we only attracted approximately £23,000 sponsorship, which did not cover our costs.

I have worked for free over the entire time, including the 18 months I spent actually uploading Daily Dose. I have subsidised the service with my own personal money, which I can ill-afford to do. As a result of the lack of funding, our Editor Jim Young works for Daily Dose at the same time as maintaining his University post. Each day before work, he searches and uploads material, returning to this task each evening. He does this every day, and every weekend, without a break. We are telling you this because we want you to know the level of our input and commitment to Daily Dose.

Daily Dose cannot though be supported solely by the commitment of our resources. If it is valuable to the field, then the field has to take on some responsibility for supporting this
initiative. And whether we like it or not we have reached that point where Daily Dose can only survive if the field itself provides the necessary level of support.

It is sad that the UK, which spends over £3 billion pounds per year tackling substance misuse, cannot find the £100K per year necessary to support Daily Dose. You know as well as I do just how much money Daily Dose saves the professional field by hunting out these articles for you, and similarly how the information collated by Daily Dose is helping improve services.

We do not want to take Daily Dose offline, we love it as much as you do – it’s a part of our lives as well – but we simply have no option. The last Daily Dose will be published on March 31st 2008 unless we receive signed commitments to a level of funding that allows us to run the service without this continuous financial insecurity. If Daily Dose does have to go offline, then we promise to restore the service as soon as sufficient financial commitment is made. But we have strained every sinew year-on-year to keep Daily Dose alive – we are financially, emotionally and physically drained. So now we are asking that you in the field, both nationally and internationally, make every effort to help save your Daily Dose.

Professor David Clark, Director of WIRED david@substancemisuse.net
(Please note that WIRED will become ‘Wired In’ from the end of this month)”

Jim Young reads the Australian Drug Blog at times, so Jim, feel free to comment on how we can help support Daily Dose. Have you thought of setting up a PayPal account for donations or considered taking advertising on your site? Readers, do you have any suggestions?