Indigenous Health Information Service, physical, spiritual, social, economic and cultural Aborigninal Health Information Service

Alcohol Drug and Mental Health

Nindilingarri Cultural Health Services successfully ran the Fitzroy Crossing Sober up Shelter for 13 years. At the time it was the only Alcohol and Drug service based in town however a Community Drug Service Team worker visited from Derby 2 days a fortnight.

Alcohol has been talked about at a community level in Fitzroy for years, in 2004 Fitzroy
had a large community meeting to talk about alcohol, and how to protect community
from its harms. Then early last year we had another big community meeting to discuss
the horrendous suicide rate and again alcohol was discussed as a major contributor to these deaths.
At Nindilingarri we were also discussing ways we could better respond to the
communities want for AOD services. In mid 2006 we approached the Drug and Alcohol Office to discuss changing from a Sober Up Shelter to a service that offered both treatment and prevention services.

The number of clients that had been attending the shelter had been falling and
everyone was getting tired of offering a revolving door service to intoxicated people
while there was no support for people wanting to reduce or stop drinking and there
was no support for families or communities to deal with the constant problems coming
from alcohol.

We consulted with the other stakeholders and in March 2007 it was agreed the Sober Up Shelter would close and we created the Alcohol Drug and Mental Health Team (ADMHT).

The team comprises of staff from various agencies and funders but who are all working together to provide the best Alcohol Drug and Mental Health Services we can to the
Fitzroy Valley. Currently there are 4 full time and 4 visiting positions which make up the ADMHT.

There are two full time staff working on the community based health promotion and education strategies, one Alcohol and Drug treatment worker, and a Child and
Adolescent Mental Health Clinician.

We also have fortnightly visiting services from the Mental Health Team and Kimberley Community Drug Service Team in Derby, Division of General Practice in Broome and
the co-morbidity worker who we are sharing with Halls Creek.

We are all working out of the old Sober Up Shelter building. Which is now called the
Alcohol Drug and Mental Health Centre.