Clinical Experience Paper

A broad range of medical and psychological therapies is currently available for people who struggle with substance addictions. The scientific community is working on evaluation of various treatments to determine which strategies offer the best chances of successful outcome. People who need treatment for alcoholism and drug use are very diverse group. Addiction is a disorder that requires an individual case approach; therefore, different ways to

Most of the times, an alcoholic or a drug addict may not be fortunate enough to have caring family members to assist him or her in overcoming addiction. For the most part, many addicts who wish to cease using alcohol desire a sense of support and understanding. Many addicts may feel encouraged to speak about their personal problems with others who share the same kinds of experiences. It is very important that individuals who have faced problems with alcohol be motivated to quit with people who may likely be recovering alcoholics. Likewise, this kind of self-help treatment method may facilitate an alcoholic to build a trusting relationship with fellow group members.

Duran’s book offers  clinical experience to provide guidance to counselors working with the native people. By taking theory into actual day-to-day practices Duran presents us with information on effective strategies to prevent problems like substance abuse, intergenerational trauma, and internalized oppression. The book has multiple cases from Duran’s research of those who are traumatized due to a historical event. I found this book very helpful in my research because it gives me insight on the cause of trauma due to our western views. The book is written by a psychologist with a PHD which makes this information accurate. The purpose of this book is to teach psychology students and new counselors to treat Native Americans better because they

The Journal of Psychoactive drugs report “Rates of alcohol-related deaths alone are double that of the non AI/AN population (CDC 2008). These alarming statistics indicate a need for increased prevention efforts and availability of treatment for this population” (Larois et al., 2011). Sadly, there are various reasons as to why this problematic epidemic continues to persist with this community. Wiechelt et al., report “studies have documented a high prevalence of lifetime exposure to direct victimization and traumatic experiences among American Indians (AIs) both on reservations (Manson, Beals, Klein, & Croy, 2005) and in urban settings” (2012). Tackling one these issues without addressing the other would not be productive. The Journal of Loss and Trauma suggest, “given the existing research on substance abuse and violence in general, it would appear that the high rates of violence and victimization, PTSD, and substance abuse among AIs are interrelated and that integrated strategies for trauma and substance abuse intervention are warranted” (Wiechelt et al.,

Throughout the years there has been a consistent need for people to reach out to help the Native American community. This is due to the fact that statistics tell us that there are many Native Americans who abuse drugs and alcohol. This sometimes leads to addiction and the consequences they have to deal with are, losing their families, becoming addicted, or hurting their families. It should be taken into consideration that although there are many things Indian country needs to work on, there are also many ways we can help create better spaces for these people to heal from such traumatic experiences. There are many programs available for those going through such circumstances and they should look for help when needed. I believe it is important

Interviewing a Native American elder helped me to better understand her physical and emotional needs. I learned that the elders are vulnerable people who need support. After my interview, I recognized that there are many conditions that the Native American elders face such as lack of support from the government; discrimination from fellow Americans; lack of support from their families; limited respect from their community; lastly, they feel neglected because of their disabilities. Why are vulnerable groups suffering, especially elderly Native Americans? They are suffering because they have no advocates, and they don 't know the resources and programs that are available to them. We can avoid the difficulties they are facing by making sure that the communities, the U.S. government, relatives, and fellow Americans work together to support this vulnerable group of people.

Native American youth have the greatest percentage of alcohol use disorders out of all racial groups in America [7]. Pine ridge reservation has a population of over 15,500 and while alcohol is illegal there, around two-thirds of its members are alcoholics. With alcohol unavailable on the reservation though, some argue this creates even more opportunities for drunk driving and bootlegging from tribe members who drive long distances to get it. Trapped in the cycle of alcoholism, it’s extremely hard for Native Americans to break out of because of a future that often doesn’t include many promising options. Once again, education is the most promising option fix this.

The newly acquired ideas were implemented in various Native American programs to improve the mental/physical health of all Native Americans. Most programs, however, base their ongoing work on four key concepts. . (Beal et al 2005) They are analyzing how alcohol and drugs affect the immediate family unit as well as how it affects relatives and friends physically, emotionally, and spiritually. What, if any of these affects are being carried down from one generation to another. Does alcohol set off any of the other affects such as drug abuse, mental illness et al? Finally, coming to the carefully scrutinized observation that alcoholism often co-exists in Indian communities with certain definite other problems like depression, self-hate, cultural shame, and stress-related acting out or inappropriate misconduct. (NADC 2011)These four main ideas are still used today to further identify and improve mental health conditions among the Native Americans.

These have devastating impacts on the view of the induvial as noted in Graham’s and Leong articles. The strengths of the article is that Graham is absolutely correct that the rational worldview and the RFL and RFL-A are useful assessments to heal American Indian youth through family, friends, communities, culture and spirit ( Black Elk, 1988; Cross, 1998; McCormick, 1997). Also the strength of connecting the history to help native American people for the practitioner to understand the high suicide number among this race. The social worker needs to begin to understand where they are coming from and not presuming their struggles. The biggest strengths that Graham makes in his article is to not treat every tribe the same because each tribe has gone through different experiences” Against over generalizing conclusions about suicide across tribal groups.”

Alcoholism is defined as the addiction to consumption of alcohol to a point where individuals become unable to live a normal and healthy live. “Excessive alcohol consumption is a leading preventable cause of death in the United States and has a greater health impact on American Indians and Alaska Native than on other racial groups” (Landen, M., Roeber, J., Naimi, T., Nielsen, L., & Sewell, M., 2014). American Indians and Alaska Natives have the “highest rate of binge drinking (30.2%) and heavy alcohol use (8.5%) of all racial groups in the United States” (Rieckmann, 2016). To fight high rates of alcoholism, federal law was implemented for prohibition of alcohol on Indian Reservations in 1974. Alcohol abuse on the reservation is cause for much of the social and economic woes that plague this sovereign nation. It is so drastic, that Navajo Nation and United States Department of Health and Human Services have dispatched programs to combat the alarming rates of fetal alcohol syndrome and binge drinking.

In this case, the most important issues are inadequate access to health care, environmental hazards, behavioral risk factors, and building trust with the Narragansett community. The first three issues are important because they directly affect the health of the Native American population. Additionally, building trust with the Narragansett tribe in order to perform research and collaborative planning is the key to designing successful care programs specifically for the Narragansett Indian Tribe. The first key issue is regarding Native Americans’ insufficient access to health care. With the percentage of unemployment within the Native American population in Rhode Island as high as 26 percent (The Office of Minority Health, 2015), “one-third of Native American adults said there was a time in the past year when they could not afford to see a doctor” (Parrish, 2012). There is not many people from the tribe can afford health access due to the fact that 42.2 percent of the Native American population is living in poverty (The Office of Minority Health, 2015). Aside from inadequate access to health care, some of the environmental health hazards that Native Americans are often exposed to include “surface and groundwater pollution, air pollution, hazardous waste, highway run-off, illegal dumping, lead paint, radon, and biological and chemical contamination of drinking water” (Parrish, 2012). According to the Environmental

I am writing you today as a young woman concerning the lack of attention towards the violence against women in retrospect to the Native American population. The fear of being a victim of assault as a young women is prominent within the society in which we live today. However, there is some relief in the fact that there are resources available at my disposal if I was to experience assault. Yet, there is a large portion of women that do not have that reassurance, and the likelihood of them experiencing assault is even greater than my own. This portion of the women population is Native American women. I will admit that the severity of the issue in concerns with the native population is something that I just recently became aware of. et I have

I did the Custer Hospital scenario as well. Like you I said that the budget and financing was going to be the biggest ex problem, considering that this is why the last CEO left. But, another problem that is going to slow the process down and relates to budgeting is the fact that they have no community assessment for the outpatients clinics. Since one of the recommendations was to add another outpatient clinic, it would be wise to even assess if they need one, or to assess whom is actually using the outpatients clinics. Once they have this figured out they could see how the budget will even need to be composed. The assessment would be able to show what portion of the community use the outpatient clinics and what type of revenue they

Alcoholism is an issue in many peoples lives. But for Native Americans it has become a very common issues effecting many people. Native Americans also affect more than health, issues like stereotyping and control come into play. Two authors decided to include the effects of alcohol in their works. By showing the affects of alcohol in Native Americans, people will be able to see the difficulties of the disease and try to overcome some of the problems.

UMelb. MD: as this is a graduate course equivalent to a masters degree there are no pre-requisites for year 12. However as transfer to this course must be from either BSc or BSc BioMed it is required that majors in these pathways are in biology, chemistry and physical sciences.