Family Drug Support Australia
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Media Release - International FDS Day 2020 Families Welcome Significant Announcemet

FDS logo 16524 February 2020
 
Founder and CEO of Family Drug Support (FDS), Tony Trimingham OAM, who started the organisation after the death of his son Damien 23 years ago to the day welcomed the Australian Government funding announcement on such an important day:

“In the 20 years, Family Drug Support has been supporting families dealing with alcohol and other drugs we have had many ups and downs.

Today has been an excellent day thanks to the announcement from the Health Minister, the Hon Greg Hunt, announcing funding to allow FDS to continue our national toll-free telephone support line for families.
 

Setting Boundaries

  • About +

    Boundary – 'a limit on what is reasonable' - Oxford English Dictionary. One of the areas that families of substance users have difficulty with is in setting boundaries that are effective and manageable.   All relationships where people live together need boundaries in place to develop trust, stability and… Read More

  • Defining The Boundary +

    What is the issue, circumstance, area of concern? What do you need to achieve? Examine your motive in wanting to set this boundary. Is it in response to clear thinking about an area of concern or is it an angry response to a set of circumstances? If… Read More

  • If A Boundary Is Broken +

    You can expect boundaries to be broken by substance users – especially when they are first put in place. They will often react to changes by pushing you and other family members to previous ways of behaving. They will probably be less motivated to change than you are.… Read More

  • Setting A Boundary +

    Having thought about the boundary you would like to set and being prepared to talk about it, the next thing is to set it with the substance user. The skill to utilise is negotiation. It is important to build and maintain a dialogue between the user and… Read More

  • Keeping a Boundary +

    The last stage in the process is keeping the boundary. This is done by: Observing if the boundary is being kept Acknowledging that it is being kept or if it is broken Responding appropriately if it is broken Read More
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NSW Family Project Officer - position available

Family Drug Support

(FDS) is a caring, non-religious organisation which provides non-judgmental, non-directive support and information for families and friends of drug and/or alcohol users across Australia. Support services and programmes for families of drug dependents are recognised gaps in most drug treatment services.  Since 1997, Family Drug Support has successfully provided programmes in this area.

FDS is seeking a motivated Family Project officer to establish and expand the service in New South Wales, providing support to families affected by Alcohol and other drugs. We are offering either a fulltime (35hour) position, working ‘flexible’ hours, “to suit family’s requirements”.

Location of position: covering the state of New South Wales, territory to be shared with an existing NSW worker.

(travelling where required, as directed by the CEO)

Key activities:

  • Liaise with AOD services and assist them to identify skills and capacities in working with families and carers of those in treatment that need enhancement.
  • Help promote, run existing and establish new family support groups
  • Deliver FDS’ Stepping Forward information sessions
  • Deliver FDS’ Stepping Stones to Success courses

Desirable qualifications:

  • Demonstrated experience in social work or Drug and alcohol services
  • Demonstrated experience in working with families
  • Group counselling skills and experience
  • Training experience
  • Membership in relevant professional associations
  • Ability to undertake phone calls to/from families needing 1 on 1 support

Essential skills:

  • Proven administration excellence, including reporting on time and ability to meet KPIs and time lines
  • Goals oriented and high level of organisation
  • Proven ability to work autonomously and as part of a team
  • Proven experience in working with people experiencing alcohol and other drug-related difficulties and working with AOD workers
  • Commitment to personal and professional growth and development
  • Participation in relevant workforce development activities
  • Understanding of and commitment to Harm Minimisation, Social Justice and FDS’ model.
  • Ability to promote FDS services through delivering information sessions and educational sessions
  • Ability to undertake intra-and interstate travel and after-hours work (as required)
  • Ability to work with FDS volunteers to support the delivery of this program
  • Computer competency, including the use of Microsoft office products and Powerpoint.
  • Unencumbered NSW driver’s licence. (This is a requirement of employment).
  • Ability to adhere to FDS policies and procedures
  • Commitment and involvement with quality processes, including reporting incidents/hazards.
  • Other requirements as directed by the CEO/Head office.

Training & Support:

  • FDS will provide full training and support in the FDS model and its programs.
  • You will be required to undertake a full induction process which will include orientation and training (possibly interstate).

Remuneration:

  • Salary package of between $68K to $72K (pro-rata) plus Superannuation (dependant on demonstrated skills and experience), with an option to salary sacrifice. A mobile telephone, laptop computer and printer will be supplied for business purposes and dependant on offer, a company car will also be supplied for work use.

Contract:

  • An initial 12 month contracted period will be negotiated with the successful candidate, with the possibility of extension dependant on funding.  There will be a 6-month probationary period.

FDS is proud to be an EEO employer.  FDS supports an inclusive approach in the workplace.  We celebrate our diversity and welcome staff regardless of ethnicity, faith, sexual orientation, gender identity and lifestyle choices.  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are encouraged to apply.

A Federal Criminal Records check will be conducted and a successful check is a requirement of on-going employment.

Applications close:  28th February 2020. Please email an expression of interest and your resume to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 

Opinion piece by David Caldicott from Canberra’s Calvary Hospital

Stop sacrificing young lives at an altar of drug dogma
Author - DAVID CALDICOTT
DECEMBER 11, 2018
 
I am the very proud father of some very naughty children, and I would happily walk through fire for them. I am also an emergency consultant with an interest in illicit drug overdoses and, by obvious extension, how to reduce them. This year, I was proud to be part of an extraordinary coalition of individuals who conducted Australia’s first government-sanctioned pilot pill test in the ACT.
 
Since the death of yet another young man at a music festival this weekend, from a presumed overdose, it is in this latter capacity that I have been asked, on several occasions now, “How do you feel about another festival death in NSW?”. He has a name: Callum Brosnan.
 
I suspect that those asking the question were looking for a more indignant response, more fury, voiced in an Irish way. I’m sorry to disappoint, but the anger — while still present — has been supplanted by something else. It’s more of a deep melancholy that I feel, verging on saudade — a Portuguese word that expresses longing for a different state.
 
Put aside the politics, put aside the policy debates. A young man is dead before his time. Allow the tragedy of that to sink in. Allow yourself, for one terrible moment, to let that wash over you, as if it were happening to your loved ones. And now tell me what you wouldn’t do, how far you wouldn’t go, to stop that happening to your family.
 
This is the perimeter around which I perpetually hover. I am the man who rings you to tell you that your child or partner is in our department, and that they are unwell, and that you need to come into hospital — right now. I am the man who will hold your hand if you need me to, and tell you that I am sorry, but I am uncertain as to how all of this will all pan out.
 
I am the man who will agree with you that you never suspected that your loved one, my patient, was in the slightest bit interested in using drugs. Every time I do this, part of me breaks, and I rush home to hold my own a little tighter.
 
Australia’s National Drug Strategy supposedly is based on the three pillars of demand reduction, supply reduction and harm reduction, but it is effectively a one-legged milking stool. Research conducted by the agents tasked with implementing drugs policy shows that the lion’s share of the money we spend on drugs policy goes into prohibition.
 
There is no requirement for the recipients of this money to demonstrate the effectiveness of this expenditure, or any evidence that this vast expenditure on the taxpayer’s dime is reaping any dividends.
 
We are not without evidence to guide us from around the world. In the early 2000s, Portugal was in a worse place than where Australia is now. By flipping expenditure on drugs policy to shift the focus to health outcomes, Portugal now has a drug-related death rate 10 times lower than Australia’s. Portugal’s prime minister at the time was Antonio Guterres, now the secretary-general of the UN. As the world turns a corner in global drugs policy, the memo seems to have missed Australia’s inbox.
 
I find my role as a parent now encroaching on opinions as a researcher, and my heart breaks for the parents and loved ones of yet another curious, bright, naughty kid who was unlucky enough to eat the wrong thing at the wrong time. Increasingly, I think of my own, and how it would make me feel if I were in that place.
 
How would I cope with the loss of one of my own, in the knowledge that society has not implemented everything that it could to ensure the tragedy could be avoided? That some in society might think that it “serves them right”, dabbling with infractions of the law. Really? Death as a “learning outcome”?
 
I don’t think I would be interested in platitudes or ridiculous generalisations about “the message” our approach to drugs sends to kids. I don’t think I’d be content with elected representatives ignoring proven approaches because of concerns about something as trivial as their popularity. Leadership requires bravery and wit, and whatever it is we’re seeing from politicians on drugs policy, it’s neither courageous nor clever.
 
I’m a simple emergency doctor, a jack of all trades, just interested in what works. And what NSW and many jurisdictions are doing in Australia is just not working. I don’t have to be tactful about this — as an emergency doctor, I belong to a tribe pretty notorious for being “solutions driven”. My mandate comes from patients, and those who seem determined to become them.
 
In the end, this issue is not going to be resolved by healthcare professionals and their enthusiasm for reducing harm, or by opponents inspired by the unattainable ideology of a “drug-free Australia”, or even the politicians trying to navigate their way to victory in a vicious beauty pageant by any means necessary. This is an issue that will be bled out of Australia, life by life, until such time as parents decide: “No more.” I have yet to meet a parent who is prepared to sacrifice their child on this altar of ideology and I abhor those who embrace the rhetoric that suggests this is reasonable.
 
It’s not reasonable that young people should die before the generation that preceded them. It’s not reasonable to accept that as a norm. What is reasonable is for any civilised society to leave “nothing in the locker room” when it comes to keeping people alive.
 
And if politicians of any shade can’t look down the barrel of a camera and say that they will commit to that, they don’t deserve the job with which they’ve been entrusted and for which we pay them.
 
David Caldicott is a consultant emergency physician at Canberra’s Calvary Hospital.