Member Spotlight: Network of Alcohol and other Drugs Agencies

NCOSS spoke to Robert Stirling, CEO of the Network of Alcohol and other Drugs Agencies (NADA).

Tell me a little bit about NADA and some of the priorities you’re focusing on right now.

NADA is turning 48 this year. We started as a network of NGOs providing alcohol and other drug (AOD) services that came together and wanted a single voice to advocate. In the beginning, we were a very small organisation. In fact, right up until the ‘99 drug summit, we only had a part-time CEO and a part -admin person.

Then we were funded to provide a data management role (supporting the collection of a newly established minimum dataset for the AOD sector post-Drug Summit) and workforce development. That’s built up over time to where we are today, which is about 16 staff, including identified Aboriginal and lived experience staff. Our priorities continue to be advocacy, sector and workforce development, as well as research and evaluation.

Following the NSW Drug Summit, what are the priority reforms NADA wants to see implemented to best support vulnerable communities across the state?

We had a full page of asks across a range of policy, funding, workforce, and cross sector partnerships. We want to see a whole-of-government response that acknowledges that people don’t exist just with drug and alcohol concerns. We need to be looking at mental health, housing, child protection – they are the challenges that a lot of our members face.

NSW hasn’t had a drug strategy since 2010. For us, it points to stigma and discrimination towards people who use drugs, and it isn’t just a community issue; it’s a policy and political issue. We feel that the stigma impacts on policy decisions and ultimately funding to the sector as well. We hope the NSW Government will prioritise an AOD strategy that is resourced, breaks down silos and provides a vision for the future … before the NSW election.

In NSW, 100,000 people who want treatment for drug or alcohol dependence are going without treatment every year. Is that largely because like the services just aren’t being funded to meet that demand?

That’s based on a study by the University of New South Wales, and it’s based on population data. So yes, there is not enough treatment, and there are waitlists to get into a lot of treatment – particularly residential withdrawal and rehabilitation.

But also, I think the problem is that alcohol and other drug services aren’t widely promoted. You don’t see billboards or ads about alcohol and other drug services. It is one of those things that feels very under the radar. People don’t want to promote it, talk about it, and so I think that stigma is part of the issue as well. Funding for prevention and early intervention is pretty much non-existent.

The data shows that half of all people presenting with a substance use disorder now also experience a co-occurring mental health condition—a leap from previous decades.

A lot of the data says it’s 50-80%. While it is definitely an issue, we’re always really cautious about how we talk about coexisting mental health and drug and alcohol issues. We know that in addressing alcohol and other drugs concerns people are likely to experience depression and anxiety, regardless if there’s a diagnosed mental health condition.

We hear that from people with living and lived experience as well. They don’t want to be perceived as – you’ve got a mental illness, that’s why you use drugs. There are definitely a proportion of people who might self-medicate if they’ve got a mental health condition. But the interaction is more complicated and nuanced, and we need to support people where they are at and with their own treatment goals. Ultimately we need resourced and connected AOD and mental services with multidisciplinary teams.

What is one key win you’ve seen across the NADA network recently?

What makes NADA unique is the data management function. We’ve got a database, NADAbase, which has over 500,000 records of people who have been through our members services.

What it’s allowed us to do over time is add validated outcome tools. The win for us is being able to tell government (and community) the outcomes that our members are delivering across substance use, mental health, and quality of life. For us, this is huge. A lot of our sister peaks would love to be in a similar position to be able to tell the story of members, for the sector to have ownership of its collective data, which is really powerful.

In saying that, even though governments say they want to measure outcomes, and we’re telling them the positive outcomes that are being achieved by our members, we still can’t get increased funding. It’s a challenge that we face. But we are really proud to have hard evidence of the positive outcomes are members are delivering across NSW communities.