The Effectiveness of the Faith Based Community in Addressing Substance Use in the United States

Abstract

This paper highlights the effectiveness of faith based community in the United States. The collective efforts of traditional and faith based community is increasing the awareness among the people about the substance abuse and child care. Initially the target market of faith based community is very niche but efforts are in progress to make this attempt more effectual. The methodologies adopted to treat the faith based community are different than traditional. There categorization and dimension is identified using the focus group and concept mapping. These two tools are very helpful in identifying the key program for each group. Groups are also categorized on the basis of religion, faith, spiritual and ritual values. Healthy outcomes can be extracted if the frequency of conducting these program increases.

The Effectiveness of the Faith Based Community in Addressing Substance Use in the United States

Initiatives for Substance Use

The treatment of substance abuse, welfare to work and child care is gaining much of public attention at an increasing rate. These recommendations and work are done in both positive and negative aspect. Faith based community initiative have added more awareness among people to take consideration regarding this issue very seriously. Special consideration is given and work is done efficiently by the faith based interventions for alcohol and other substance abuse. Although the faith based substance abuse treatment is target to a very small market but it should be considered in relation to the tradition effort made to reduce the consumption of substances and drugs among the people. There is a distinction between the faith based and traditional community addressing the issues of substance use in America. There are some subjective difference among the two because of difference in their religious beliefs and values. Faith based program are very particular about the spiritual values, discipline structure and Biblical content in comparison to traditional substance abuse. However along with the spiritual elements lie many political and social implications.

Approaches of Faith based Community

Many approaches have been adopted by the faith based program since its existence. Some treatment programs were traditional treatment programs while the new advance programs are offering licensed professional staff to faith based program. To identify the key program, methodologies such as focus group and concept mapping are used. These methodologies are adopted to access the extent of treatment the program requires. Usually these mapping out are done with the help of explanatory study and analysis ( Johnsen, Biegel & Shafran, 2000). This is done to map out in what dimension the cluster of people will fall in and what implications should be taken into account. The people are usually made distinctive on the basis on rituals, beliefs and spiritual elements. Faith based communities are working along with the national network which is spread across the country such as the Catholic Charities, urban and social ministries, freestanding organizations providing treatment services along with the Faith based community program.

The US White House paper also ...