STAGE 5. Defining the action plan
What steps should be completed?
Step 1: Specify intervention actions
PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL INCLUSION PROGRAMMES AIMED AT DRUG-DEPENDENT PEOPLE
- The multiple causes of exclusion can only be approached from a multidimensional standpoint, not by focusing exclusively on employability (however much this is considered to be the basic mechanism of social inclusion and protection against poverty). Social inclusion requires an intervention that affects all areas of life: personal, relational, family, educational, health, training, work, legal-criminal, etc.
- An environment of standardised social relations, which goes beyond overcoming addiction and access to the labour market,1 must be rebuilt for effective social integration.
- The processes of rehabilitation and social inclusion are mutually reinforcing: social inclusion is not a post-rehabilitation stage, but it begins and develops in parallel to rehabilitation. It's a multifactorial process.
- In general, social inclusion of drug-dependent people requires an initial intervention to entrench their abstinence and/or control consumption, incorporating certain basic learning that will allow them to access the supply of resources in the community. However, a lack of sustained abstinence in drug-dependent people should not be grounds for preventing access to social inclusion support services (employment training services, housing services, etc.).
- Social inclusion is a diverse process that does not correspond to standardised stages through which anyone with drug problems should pass. It must be flexible enough to accommodate everyone who wants to change.2 This plural process will be executed and resolved in different ways, according to each individual’s needs and potential and the resources available.
References
1 CICAD. (2011). Integración social y drogas [Social inclusion and drugs]. Secretaría de Seguridad Multidimensional de la CICAD [CICAD Secretariat of Multidimensional Security]. CICAD/INF.3/11 26 April 2011.
2 Cruz F, Ramón T, Navarro K et al. (2005). Documento Marco de UNAD. Incorporación Sociolaboral de las personas con problemas de drogas. Redefiniendo nuestros planteamientos. Madrid: UNAD, Unión de Asociaciones y Entidades de Atención al Drogodependiente.
