17 May 2021
The Role of Social Workers in Substance Use Disorder Management
Social workers play a crucial role in identifying and treating people with substance use disorders, says Zeldah Makhubele, Director at the South African National Council of Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (SANCA) Witbank. “While current available research has its limitations, several trends in practice indicate a significant rise in SUDs in South Africa. This has been a growing, concerning trend for the past ten years,” says Makhubele.
The prevalence of substance use disorders in South Africa is challenging to attain because of the limited capacity to conduct national surveys. South African SUDs trends are twice that of global statistics, which is alarming because SUDs contributes to other problems such as poverty, reduced productivity, unemployment, dysfunctional family life, political instability, the escalation of chronic diseases such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and tuberculosis (TB), injury and premature death (HSRC,2019).
Alcohol and dagga continue to be among the most used and abused substances in South Africa. The former is primarily prevalent in adults and the latter in youth and children.
“Emerging new concoctions, such as nyaope (whoonga), which contain dagga, heroin, household cleaner, rat poison, and the HIV drug Efavirenz, are of particular concern. This drug is proving to have detrimental repercussions to users as well as their families.
Social workers working in the substance use domain generally have limited resources to deal with the nyaope drug trends and the resulting demand for treatment. Social workers regularly encounter individuals and families affected by nyaope disorders, which is wreaking havoc on our communities,” says Makhubele.
Social workers’ role in detection, prevention, and case management
Social workers play the roles of a broker, enabler, teacher, mediator, advocate, and case manager for people with SUD. They are uniquely positioned to deliver Evidence-Based Practices for SUDs to clients in various settings, and they serve as advocates for users who other stakeholders often stigmatize for treatment.
“As part of their duty of care, social workers engage with the topic of substance use, motivate people to consider changing their problematic substance use, and support people in their efforts to make and maintain changes in their lives,” says Mkhubele.
In practice, social workers conduct alcohol and drug prevention by including key screening questions with all clients regardless of their age or other demographics. As a result of the high comorbidity of substance use disorders with other behavioral and mental health conditions, social workers play a significant role in early detection and prevention regardless of the presenting problem.
“Many times, social workers act as case managers and advocate for users when dealing with the relevant stakeholders such as health departments, social security, and welfare. Social workers also provide essential preventive services to diverse communities at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. They are often responsible for developing as well as implementing prevention programs in schools and other community settings and evaluating their effectiveness,” says Mkhubele.
Supporting, enabling, and developing social workers for better collaboration
Mkhubele encourages social workers to continue with continuous professional development and further education to stay on top of recent developments in SUDs, and they need to be provided with sufficient training and resources to help the public better.
“Institutions employing social workers should create an enabling environment whereby they provide training for them, bursary opportunities, encourage self-study and multidisciplinary case discussions. Due to ever-increasing caseloads and treatment demand, sufficient training for social workers should be prioritised,” says Mkhubele.
Collaboration with policymakers and family members is crucial to ensure that treatment yields a positive outcome.
“Policymakers need to ensure that there is effective collaboration among stakeholders to minimise the red tapes such as detoxification of clients, referral to halfway houses, prevention programmes at schools, and so forth,” says Mkhubele.
She concludes by saying that there is a need to involve family members in treatment, which is still relatively rare in treating SUDs. “Some of the goals of family therapy in substance abuse treatment include helping families become aware of their own needs and providing genuine, enduring healing for family members; working to shift power to the parental figures in a family and to improve communication; helping the family make interpersonal, intrapersonal, and environmental changes affecting the person using alcohol or drugs; and keeping substance abuse from moving from one generation to another,” says Mkhubele.
The Annual Addiction Conference will be held virtually this year, and it will take place on 21-23 July. Practical, evidence-based Substance Use Disorder solutions relevant to the unique African context will be explored.
ENDS
MEDIA CONTACT: Rosa-Mari Le Roux, +27 60 995 6277, rosa-mari@thatpoint.co.za, www.atthatpoint.co.za
For more information on the ADDICTION 2021 Conference:
Website: www.addiction.org.za
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/events/6764476872391712768/