Mr Bracks and Health Minister John Thwaites were launching Family Drug Help—a State-wide service for families, run by families who had lived through the ordeal of drug addiction.

A Family Drug Helpline—1300 660 068—is available 24 hours, seven days a week.

‘This is a service unique in Australia, run by trained volunteers who have had direct experience of drug use in the family and a team of professional telephone counsellors based at Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre,’ Mr Bracks said.

Mr Bracks also announced nine self-help networks to be set up across the State to give families emotional and practical support from other families who had been through the same experience.

‘The new Family Drug Help package is a very important part of the Government’s strategy to prevent young people from taking up drugs,’ Mr Bracks said.

‘It will give vital support to parents, who simply don’t know what to do—or where to turn—when they first suspect their child may be experimenting with drugs.

‘Many families cope in isolation, unable to talk to their friends or neighbours about what is happening to their child.

‘Family Drug Help will improve the links between families and drug treatment services and make sure the Government hears the views of these families,’ Mr Bracks said.

Mr Thwaites said the role of parents and families who had first-hand experience of the drug use within their own family could not be over-stated.

‘In the past, drug services have been directed almost exclusively to helping drug users, without the involvement of family members, who are often the most distressed,’ Mr Thwaites said.

Research by the Department of Human Services’ found that families feel helpless and ill-prepared to deal with a child with a major drug problem, even though their involvement was crucial in their child’s fight against drugs, Mr Thwaites said.

The Family Drug Help program would give families the emotional and practical support they needed as well as solid information about negotiating the treatment system and referral services.

The Government is providing $198,000 per year to run the Family Drug Helpline and $130,000 per year to establish at least nine self-help groups over the next year and to strengthen some 30 existing self-help groups.

Family Drug Help is a consortium of agencies—the Self Help Addiction Recovery Centre, Parents for Drug Information and Support and Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre.

The consortium is continuing to recruit and train parent volunteers for the helpline and is carrying out work to further boost the parent self-help groups.

‘The support of the whole community is needed to tackle the problems caused by drugs in our society,’ Mr Bracks said.

‘Parents are so often in the frontline and these family-help initiatives will help ensure they are not alone.’

The Family Drug Helpline and Family Drug Help are part of the Bracks Government’s $77 million drug initiative, It’s Our Drug Problem, Let’s Fight It Together.

The package includes drug information nights for 16,000 parents and 2,000 extra counselling sessions for families.