How to Support Bohol's First Drug Rehab Center

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

Now that Bohol’s first drug rehabilitation center is about to operate this month, it may be good to talk about how we can support it. Rene Francisco, CEO of the FITWBK (Farm It Works Balay Kahayag) Chemical Dependency Treatment Center, arrived the other day with the technical and administrative staff to finalize and implement plans to renovate and equip the facility and have everything in place in accordance with existing guidelines.

By this time, the Municipal LGU of Baclayon and the barangay councils within the immediate catchment area (barangays Laya, Montana and Cambanac) have been oriented on the policies and procedures of the Center. Once it is ready for full operations, the newly-formed staff from the partners, Family and Recovery Management Center from Minglanilla, Cebu and the It Works Chemical Dependency Treatment Center, will formally invite representatives from the Provincial Government, the various agencies, faith-based and civil society organizations to formally open discussion for possible partnership.

The facility is located at the Balay Kahayag Training Center compound in Laya, Baclayon. A number of queries have been received on admission procedures and we have referred these to the executive staff composed of Rene Francisco, COO; Jimmy Clemente, CEO; and Alain Alino, Center Director.

Queries can be made with Director Alino at Mobile number 09173250252 or with the Administrative Officer, Martin Cinco at 09774506285 or at email raemartin-cinco@yahoo.com.

The Pestelos family, which owns the BK facilities that will be improved upon and used by FITWBK, and the Bohol Local Development Foundation, Inc. (BLDF) which has carried out intensive research and consultations on having a drug rehabilitation center in the province and undertaken liaison work with the two partner entities, are not part of the management nor of the administrative staff of the facility.

This is to enable the FITWBK to be managed as a business enterprise to ensure its financial sustainability. Its clients will be charged standard or regular fees. The management will exercise functions as befit a commercial entity to ensure financial viability for the enterprise.

Although a business concern, it will be run as a social enterprise, with its profit used to operate the business and the profit to be channeled to contribute to the objective of helping increase the access of drug abuse victims from among the youth to high-quality services offered by the FITWBK.

It has been agreed between BLDF and the FITWBK Management that for every ten (10) paying clients, an additional two (2) will be non-paying who will be recommended jointly by DSWD and BLDF as coming from indigent families. This number will still not be enough to cope with hundreds of young people who have become drug abusers in recent years, most of them from marginalized families who will not be able to pay for center fees although these are much lower than those charged in similar facilities outside the province.

This is a critical area needing support from the Government, private sector and civil society organizations. They may want to sponsor clients to the Center on a sharing basis with the individual families and the Center management. The latter has had experiences on such arrangement and it will conduct an information campaign on this vital aspect of its operations.

The other opportunity for supporting FITWBK is to help in addressing the tremendous demand expected of its services in a province where around 70% of reported crimes are drug-related. This is an area requiring determined action from both Government and civil society organizations.

Despite the presence of the FITWBK, which is still limited in its intake capacity in relation to the huge demand for pre-treatment or diagnostic and treatment services, we still need to have a more systematic approach to broaden access to such services.

A contact point is needed between a service facility and the families affected by drug abuse and pave the way for their drug-related problems to be systematically addressed. Some ways must be found to relieve FITWBK of some tasks related to this need so it can focus on the treatment aspect of its operations.

As I said in previous columns, almost fifty percent  in a 21-column run I did on the subject of drug addiction since early this year, we need to establish what is called Outreach and Drop-In Centers (ODICs) by the UN or Substance Abuse and Family Enhancement (SAFE) by other agencies. Whether called ODIC or SAFE, this facility has these common objectives:

a.       To provide early intervention services and counseling to drug addicts to prevent relapse;

b.      To provide motivation and counseling to the addicted persons, and co-dependents/family members to seek treatment;

c.       To involve the community and significant others to help the drug addicts and their families in their recovery journeys;

d.      To reach out and provide basic information, knowledge and literature to addicted persons who do not want to appear in the treatment center;

e.       To provide home-based treatment for those in remote areas, particularly women where treatment facilities are not available;

f.       To provide a place and encourage the meetings of the support groups for recovering persons and co-dependents;

g.      To facilitate vocational training, job placements, develop self-employment and income generating activities for recovering persons; and

h.      To help recovering persons to join mainstream society as productive citizens and continue their recovery journey successfully.

The activities undertaken in this facility are as follows:

1.      Outreach visits;

2.      Early intervention strategies such as pre-treatment counseling, home-based detoxification;

3.      Short-term outpatient or home-based treatment;

4.      Referrals to hospitals or drug treatment centers;

5.      Organization and conduct of education and training programs by professionals on drug awareness,

6.      Training of outreach support staff and volunteers,

7.      Skills training; and

8.      Encouraging family members to come to the centers for counseling.

In a previous column, we have put the details on the specifications and costing for such a vital facility. I still think the Church and faith-based organizations will be in a better position to initiate and manage it at this time as support to the drug rehabilitation center which will soon be operational but still with limited capacity to address all the needs brought about by this enormous drug addiction problem in our province.

The other support needed will be the organization of a Core Training and Operations Team (CTOT) composed of agencies and other entities with programs or projects which can be linked to drug prevention and rehabilitation.  As listed before in previous studies and proposals, this team may include: the Provincial Government of Bohol, the various LGUs preferable in those most affected by the drug abuse problem, Holy Name University and other academic institutions with psychology courses, Kasing-Sining Association, and representatives from the Church and other faith-based organizations.

This team will require intensive training on how to help implement the various initiatives related to supporting the drug rehabilitation center, the ODICs or outreach facilities that have been proposed to relieve the pressure off the pioneering facility, and to prepare for a more systematic collaborative efforts on the part of various sectors in carrying on the task of addressing the so-called drug menace in our province.

This team may have an inter-agency composition or it can be based in one agency or NGO and given the authority with counterparts from other entities. It will have to be trained and mobilized to produce the following outputs vital to this initial phase of an evolving Provincial Drug Abuse Prevention and Rehabilitation Assistance Program (DAPRAP):

-A systematic plan for doing community-based orientation and consultation activities in priority

areas agreed upon with FITWBK;

-A resource mobilization and fund raising campaign to be able to raise funds for a working

Secretariat and to implement key activities;

-A clear plan on how to raise funds to enable clients from indigent families gain access to the

services from the Center;

-A plan to generate support and participation from potential partners (LGUs/CSOs; Provincial

Government; Kasing Sining; Holy Name University; University of Bohol; BISU; and other

academic institutions; the Catholic church and other faith-based organizations; CSOs/NGOs;

corporations and the business sector;

-A plan for tapping support from the UN and international donors.

In a society such as Bohol which is known for families and constituencies with high

respect for authority, the initial steps to take in the fight against drug abuse will require a clear

call from the leadership at family and up the hierarchy of mandated and official governance. A

clear and persistent call from formal and informal leaders must now be heard not only about

arresting drug pushers but, more importantly, in making drug abuse victims undergo counselling

and a recovery process eventually.

I think most people in the province want a drug-free Bohol but they have not found a united voice to say it.  I sense that once the FITWBK and several outreach facilities are in place, the province shall be in a better and more effective position to launch a multi-sectoral approach to the drug addiction problem which now threatens the present and future of most families in our province.

Then it will be time for our leaders and people to talk about the Bohol they want. I am sure they will say, with few exceptions, they want a drug-free province.

 For comments, email npestelos@gmail.com

NMP/06 Nov. 2015/8.03 a.m. 

Outreach Services for Drug Addiction Cases

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

The recently-concluded consultation meetings with barangay councils in the immediate catchment area of the emerging drug rehabilitation center, to be known as the FARM It Works Balay Kahayag (FITWBK) Chemical Dependency Treatment Center, has shown that we need to establish a network of outreach services units in support of this facility. The consultative activity undertaken just recently in the barangays of  Laya, where the FITWBK will be located, and the adjoining barangays, Cambanac and Montana, in the municipality of Baclayon has validated the need for such outreach services. Otherwise, Bohol’s first drug rehabilitation center will not be able to cope with the number of drug addiction cases that will have to be attended to which will require comprehensive assessment, referral and treatment.

I listened intently and took notes as Alain Alino, center director, engaged the barangay council members on a) the gravity of the drug addiction problem to be addressed in each barangay;  b) what must be done immediately in preparation for the full operations of the center.

For the first key concern, I brought along our compilation of newspaper clippings on the drug abuse issue, now in five thick “Columnar Books,” and passed them around. No expression of shock nor surprise at all from those who attended the meetings.

Perhaps they were by this time used to seeing pictures of people shot dead in broad daylight or that they were able to adjust to the grim reality brought about by drug-related crimes. In one barangay, they matter-of-factly mentioned during the meeting about a male drug addict who committed suicide by electrocuting himself! A cruel and brutal way to die, but I did not hear any strong response to it by way of comment. I had the uneasy feeling that they were thinking the person deserved to die this way because it was his fault he became a drug addict.

In all their accounts of the drug addiction situation in their neighborhood, there seemed to be a general acceptance about it, a laid-back, matter-of-fact attitude about a personal or family problem. Since it was not discussed as a problem in any of their previous meetings, I concluded that the leaders of the barangays and their constituents were treating this as purely family business and not the concern of local governance at all.

As the discussion progressed in each of the three meetings, I came to realize that this seemingly passive attitude about the problem could be due to: a) lack of full knowledge about drug addiction as a brain disease and that it needs systematic treatment and post-treatment interventions; and b) a self-imposed denial of the problem due to perceived high cost of treatment which the family could not possibly afford.

For both key concerns, each of three barangay councils were able to identify something in common. Everybody agreed that an outreach facility is urgently needed to serve as initial contact point for advice, initial testing or assessment and  referral to an institution which can provide the appropriate treatment for family members with a drug addiction problem.

The latter may include home-based or non-residential treatment which is less costly than institutionalized treatment and care.

In previous columns, I have referred to this support outreach facility as ODIC or Outreach Drop-In Center as used by the UN agency which piloted this concept in several countries, including the Philippines. I learned from colleagues of the two drug rehab centers helping us that this is similar to what was piloted in Ozamiz City with the acronym SAFE or Substance Abuse Family Enhancement facility.

Whether named ODIC or SAFE, it can serve the purpose of providing vital information to affected families about the nature of drug addiction affecting any of their members, their relative severity of the affliction and the appropriate treatment required.

The result will then be a sound basis for determining the costs, which may be affordable after all. Our colleagues from both the FARM Recovery Center and the It Works Chemical Dependency Treatment Center that they will be flexible in their costing, that the costs can be negotiable, based on the ability to pay of families deserving of financial assistance.

The costing can be realistically estimated at the ODIC-type facility which can be established to take the load off the drug rehab center during the diagnostic or pre-treatment phase.  The next question is: how do we establish the ODIC-type facility? In previous proposals that we prepared prior to this recent arrangement regarding the FITWBK, we gave details about the physical infrastructure and staffing required and the costing, and we proposed that the facility be initially under the management of the Church or any faith-based organization.

This proposed strategy was based on our thinking that during critical times, families burdened with problems could relate more to religious institutions rather than to secular ones. I think this is an area where partnership with the religious sector will be quite effective in addressing the key concerns I have cited. Our advocacy for this outreach facility will necessarily include getting faith-based organizations to get interested in taking up responsibility for this missing link in the current strategy.

We cannot burden the pioneering entity with most of the activities that belong to the pre-treatment phase so that its technical staff can focus on the treatment aspect of the rehabilitation process.

The discussions during the barangay consultation meetings further strengthened the resolve of both the Center staff and our NGO to devise effective strategies to organize families burdened with the drug addiction problem more effectively. It is only through an organization that these families can mutually learn to mobilize resources together, share learnings in dealing with a common problem and, on the whole, be a significant social force to address the current drug menace in our midst which remains unattended by sound policies and programs.

Finally, we would like to say, we are energized by the enthusiasm that everyone exuded during the barangay meetings. Everyone would like to be part of the emerging movement for a drug-free Bohol. We hope our readers will join us in providing support to the pioneering drug rehabilitation facility and help us prevent future social problems due to untreated drug addiction among our people, mostly the youth.

For the provision of much-needed outreach services to families burdened by the drug addiction problem, we hope and pray the Church and faith-based organizations will join us in this crusade to save souls and win the hearts and minds of more people to our cause. As pointed out during the discussions, drug addiction causes more damage than the strongest typhoon or earthquake. It destroys both our present and future.

For comments, email us at: npestelos@gmail.com.

NMP/31 Oct 2015/3.12 a.m.