Thursday, September 25, 2003

Addiction treatment program now gentler (Canada)
Story in the Toronto Star - "More than 700 welfare recipients are now involved in a controversial addiction treatment program Ontario plans to implement province-wide by 2005. It's a kinder, gentler plan than the one that critics labelled as "coercive" when it was originally announced in 2000. But one fundamental aspect remains in place: the program is mandatory for Ontario Works recipients in selected regions for whom it's deemed addiction poses a 'barrier to employment.'" The story also surveys some of the response to the program since it was announced in 2000 - " '...We are concerned that the portrayal of addictions as the major impediment to employment stigmatizes a population who are struggling to overcome what are a complex and interdependent set of barriers,' reads a letter from the top administration at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health."