National Conference

National Families & Community
Conference on Drugs

"Voices to be Heard"

MEDIA RELEASE

A MAJOR NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE DRUG CRISIS

GETS GOING THIS WEEK

On Friday and Saturday of this week (10-11 November 2000) a major national conference on families and drugs will be held at the Soka Gakkai International Australian Culture Centre at Homebush Bay. It is organised by Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform and Family Drug Support.

Thanks to financial support from the Australian National Council on Drugs it will provide a rare opportunity for those across the country - including those from regional and remote communities - from Bunbury to the Alice, Cape York and Tasmania - to get together and address drug use, policy and programs.

No issue looms so large from the personal, family and community levels to the national level. It is a bond of suffering that brings us together. We forget that families, users, drug workers and the community are in the same boat. All too often we are paddling in different directions. This conference will provide a special opportunity to work out how we might pull together. We must do this if we are to overcome the drug crisis.

• At present we as a community are at odds with ourselves. We seek to protect our children from drugs yet the spread of drug use shows that we are manifestly failing. No family is "safe" from drugs.

• The family is changed forever when addiction enters. So often parents are set against children; brothers are at odds with sisters. Friends cease to be;
• At times we want to grab our addicted child by the scruff of the neck - we even demand that the law should help us - yet we know that compulsion can sever the links of love and trust that alone can turn around that child;

• Some see harm minimisation measures that focus on keeping users alive and in reasonable health in spite of their addiction as encouraging others to take up drugs; Those who regard getting a user drug free to be the first and foremost duty are at odds with those who believe it is possible and more important to keep an addicted user alive and connected with the
• community;

• Drug workers who strive to connect with drug users on the streets and help them enter and stay in treatment are seen as attracting criminals and down and outs;

• Drug users who take steps to help themselves are deterred by shortage of services and a mindset that looks on them as worthless.

• Drug using youth is regarded as a threat. It is marginalised and forced in on itself. Age is thereby set against youth. Our sense of community is lost.

The conference will not shirk tough questions like these. We do not expect it to come up with a complete set of answers but we are confident that it will be a big step along the road to finding them.

The first step is to give an opportunity for voices to be heard. Those voices will articulate different experiences and view points. We will listen and respect each other. We will not talk past each other as so often occurs.

The core of the "Voices to be Heard" conference is therefore the stories of families, users and drug workers. The courage and endurance they reveal are triumphs of the human spirit. They are available at http://www.ffdlr.org.au. They will be related in plenary sessions and also in workshops where they will be the spring board for discussions on:

• Keeping our family together;
• The role of the community and community based services in this process;
• How to access the right treatment and advice;
• The difficulties of getting treatment for users with mental health and drug use problems;
• What treatments can do to change patterns of drug use;
• Grief and loss;
• Families, drugs and the law; and
• Communication between users and their families.

The first day, Friday, will be devoted to issues facing small organisations seeking to provide drug services in local communities.

• Workshops will consider
• Threats to their survival;
• Recruitment, training and nurturing of volunteers;
• Working with parents;
• Preparing funding submissions;
• Staff development;
• Performance measurement and continuing improvement; and
• Current issues and future perspectives.

The NSW Government and its agencies are providing substantial help to facilitate these workshops and the Hon. John Della Bosca, MLC, Special Minister of State will open the conference. This and the other support that the conference has received gives hope that we can lift the veil of shame that stifles voices and hides possibilities: that we can build co-operation where now there is conflict and denial.

Keynote speakers will include Rev'd Tim Costello, Prof Ian Webster, AO, who is President of the Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia, Isabel Norvill and Douglas Walker of the Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council (SA) Inc and Anne Deveson.

At Homebush success is ours if we can learn to pull together like our team athletes who crowned themselves with Olympic success.

8 November 2000

Contacts:

Brian McConnell 0408 022 870 and, until am 9 November, (02) 6254 2961;

Tony Trimingham (02) 9715 2632 and 0412 414 444;

Ann Symond (02) 9389 6806.

Programme with stories available as a pdf file on:

http://www.ffdlr.org.au/Conference/