Tackling addictions in Almeria

THE provincial government is taking steps to help tackle addictions.
The Diputacion de Almeria has designed a programme of 27 training and educational workshops on the prevention of drug and other addictions, including technology.
The sessions will be held across the province in October and November and will be aimed not only at professionals, but also at teenagers and families.
“Family is fundamental in our society and they are the first who are going to detect abnormal behaviour and who are going to help out us out of this situation”, commented Provincial Well-being deputy, Angeles Martinez.
“Very often we lack the tools and the skills to face this”, she said, adding, “with these workshops what we want to do is to inform, train and educate families so conflict is reduced, attachments and family bonds are improved, and they can carry out really effective preventive work”.
Martinez, explained the workshops on drug dependency and addictions in the family environment will be held in Carboneras, Cuevas del Almanzora, Los Gallardos, Tíiola, Velez Blanco, Velez Rubio and Zurgena. The teachers will be professionals from the Diputacion de Almeria Drug Dependency and Addictions Provincial Service, who will run the workshops in blocks of three 90-minutes sessions.
The goal of these workshops is to give parents specific training on addictions to drugs and the development of improved family relations and on bringing up children and supervising their behaviour.
The regional government workshops focusing on the prevention of addictions and the positive use of information technology and communications will be held in 20 municipalities, including Carboneras, Chirivel, Cuevas, Los Gallardos, Mojacar, Pulpi, Seron, Tabernas and Turre.
The idea is to make families aware of the possible dangers associated with technology.
“We are going to equip families with tools and useful resources which allow them to detect possible addictive behaviour and which put them at risk, such as sharing images with unknown people, preventing school bullying, etc”, Martinez said.
Each workshop will be divided into three sessions of between 60 and 90 minutes, and will be weekly with groups of 15 to 25 participants.