Document Actions
Dual diagnosis
Dual Diagnosis is a term which is widely used but rarely defined. Yet most workers in the housing and homelessness fields will be aware of the high numbers of homeless clients who are given such a label, and who often have several (unmet) needs.
Moreover such a label often leads to exclusion from services, where Mental Health services often require potential clients to be ‘dry’/drug free for varying periods of time before carrying out an assessment. . Alcohol/drug services often expect a degree of motivation and engagement from clients as a pre-cursor to working with them.
As a result clients often can’t access either service and mainstream workers are left to cope. Given the amount of information that would otherwise need to be covered in one day, participants attending should have a basic understanding of mental health categories so that information about different drugs and how they may affect mental ill health can be built upon.
aim of the session:
To provide participants with awareness of the main types of drug and how their use might affect clients with mental health problems:
objectives:
By the end of the session, participants
- will have covered the main categories of drugs, focusing on those most common with their client group
- will have considered why people with mental ill health problems drink or use drugs
- will have looked at some of the interactions between mental health presentations and drug use.
- will have worked through two particular models in helping people with substance misuse problems
- will have used case studies to bring together topics raised during the session
- will have considered how they can apply course information/discussion to their specific workplace
suitable for:
All those working with people who may have mental health needs and substance misuse issues, including housing and hostel workers, floating support workers, day centre workers and anyone with an interest in gaining an overall understanding of the issues involved.