Contact the project director, Al Hasson, at:
alberthasson@earthlink.net
(Middle East Initiatives)
UCLA ISAP has been selected to serve as a host site for Iraqi behavioral health teams participating in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services’ (SAMHSA) Iraq Training Initiative. In this initiative, SAMHSA has agreed to sponsor a group of six teams of mental health professionals to work with U.S. educational institutions to build human resource capacity in a wide range of services, including:
- services for children and families
- services for internally displaced persons
- substance abuse services
- forensics
- trauma services.
ISAP will host Dr. Salih Hasnawi and colleagues, who will focus on the topic of substance abuse services.
The following is a brief description of the project.
South-Central Region of Iraq (Karbala)
Substance Abuse Treatment Services
This project proposes
to “establish treatment services for drug
addiction, including psychosocial and community treatment, and treatment
for co-occurring disorders, at two levels, the hospital level and the
primary health care center.” Services will include inpatient
and outpatient services in the hospital, as well as community-based
psychotherapy and treatment services and referrals via the primary
health care center. The team is composed of a psychiatrist, general
practitioner, psychologist, and social worker. They want to observe
management of substance abuse at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels,
as well as inpatient and outpatient units, detox, rehabilitation, psychotherapy,
counseling, day treatment, medications and medications management,
coordination with the justice and social welfare systems, and research
and data collections systems.
