News

"Best practice treatment environment for youth requiring detoxification: Working toward a change in practice'

Cyndee MacPhee (Chair, CBU Department of Nursing) and Evelyn Kennedy (Associate Dean, CBU Department of Nursing) have recently completed an extensive environmental scan of practices for the detoxification of adolescents in eastern Nova Scotia. Their findings have been published in a report entitled “Best practice treatment environment for youth requiring detoxification: Working toward a change in practice".

The methodology for this Health Canada sponsored report, included an extensive literature review, collecting local and provincial statistics on addictions service usage, holding focus groups with frontline withdrawal management staff, interviewing adolescents and their families, and visiting provincial sties offering withdrawal management services.

Report findings indicate that current service delivery for adolescents in need of treatments for their drug abuse needs immediate and intense intervention and that future program developments are required to provide a seamless continuum of service for adolescents. It is the author’s opinion that this can only be accomplished by establishing an infrastructure of care at the local level.

Production of this report was possible due in part to financial contributions of Health Canada. Note that the views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Health Canada.

A copy of the complete report can be found here.

Audio clips from CBC Radio interviews can be found at...

CBC Radio; Information Morning Cape Breton, September 14-16th, 2009, Feeling Abandoned (3 part series)
from http://www.cbc.ca/informationmorningcb/features/sep.html

CBC National Radio ; The Current ; September 21, 2009, Teen Detox-Talk Tape; retrieved September 28th
from http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200909/20090921.html

CBC Radio: Information Morning Cape Breton , September 24th, 2009; Addiction Services Director
CBC Radio: Information Morning Cape Breton , September 23rd , 2009; Treatment Options
from http://www.cbc.ca/informationmorningcb/