Woodbridge, ON, Feb 27, 2009: Human Endeavour organized one day training for mainstream agencies providing addiction and mental related services in York Region. The purpose of the training was to increase the cultural competency of the mainstream agencies by presenting the unique needs of the South Asian clients to promote understanding and develop culturally appropriate services so that South Asian community can benefit from them.
This was the second training of its kind organized by Human Endeavour and delivered by Baldev Mutta and Amandeep Kaur from Punjabi Community Health Services. PCHS has a holistic approach which is reflective of the structure of the South Asian community and they shared it with the mainstream organizations to help them understand that they will have to make adjustments/changes and use non-traditional techniques to be successful in dealing with South Asian clients.
Baldev Mutta, the Executive Director of PCHS presented on Implementing Cultural Competency in Workplace and discussed the need of understanding the basic values and patterns of diverse communities, importance of going beyond the fixed rules to reach out and establish a rapport with clients of diverse backgrounds. He acknowledged that with increasing multiculturalism, mainstream organizations are introducing diversity and inclusivity practices/trainings at the workplace but he identified that it will not be enough unless the whole management from the board to the frontline staff goes through the training and is reflective of the diversity of the population.
Within the South Asian communities, the unintentional enablers of addictive behavior can be from the family and community depending upon the traditional roles assigned to each person within that community. There is a need to understand the tensions that addiction can have upon the family members and how they can also hinder help-seeking, treatment and outcome of the treatment. All these factors need to be considered to treat clients from South Asian community successfully.
Noor Din, the Executive Director of Human Endeavour gave a brief overview on the Islamic teachings regarding alcohol and drug addiction. Islam completely forbids the use of intoxicants and considers it to be sin but it does not take away the hope of forgiveness. Islam teaches that if one is repentant, he can get forgiveness. Majority of Muslims believe that prayers and spirituality can cure any problem so they do not seek clinical help for addiction. There is also a sense of bringing shame to family and community involved when admitting to such problems. It is up to the individual to seek professional/medical help. There is a lack of research in Canada about Muslim clients with addiction issues. Noor discussed the contributors that lead to addiction in the South Asian communities in Canada as being migration, poverty, employment related issues, lack of support, racism, conflict between their culture and the Canadian culture, parenting issues, reversal of roles in the family and hierarchal setup etc. These views were echoed by other speakers.
Neethan Shan, the Executive Director of Coalition of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA) spoke from the Tamil perspective. The Tamil community in Canada is mainly from the war-torn country of Srilanka and majority came here as refugees so the mental health issues are huge. Suicide rate in Tamil community is very high. Dealing with addiction clients from Tamil community requires an understanding of their background, fears and an extra effort to establishing rapport with them. Gambling is an increasing problem in Tamil seniors. Youth are more into drugs than alcohol use. Tamils have the least amount of support of getting out of addiction because they are a very close-knit community and undertake these as social, group activities. He concluded with the statement that community partnerships are needed to address the issues of addiction in Tamil community.
Amandeep Kaur from PCHS discussed the professional and clients’ expectations when visiting an agency to seek help for addiction or mental health problems. She shared the complex nature of dealing with clients from South Asian background because they come from a different cultural and social set up and have a different family set up. South Asian society is collective versus individualistic where individuals have the responsibility of carrying the name and preserving the entity of the group. This understanding plays a huge difference when dealing with South Asian clients with addiction and mental problems. She shared the PCHS integrated holistic model of dealing with such clients, in which the whole family is engaged and trained simultaneously so that relapses are avoided because of lack of re-conciliation.
Throughout the training participants remained actively engaged in discussion and questions to know more about the culture and needs of the community. They expressed their appreciation for the training and its benefit. Certificates were distributed to all participants. |
