CARICOM Universal standard of care handbok for the treatment and rehabilittaion of drug dependance - Guidelines and criteria for the Assessment of Standards of Care in the treatment of Drug Dependance

In the Caribbean Community, care, treatment and rehabilitation of persons addicted to drugs are administered through public, private and Non Governmental organizations. In recent times and in response to unmet needs, a number of treatment facilities have been established. Many of these facilities are not guided by standards related to facilities, services and personnel. Additionally, the administration of these services is very often challenged by inadequate human resources, insufficiently trained personnel and lack of funds to establish and maintain structures and programmes.
It was against this background, that the CARICOM Secretariat, in collaboration with the Inter- American Drug Abuse Control Commission The CARICOM Universal Standard of Care Handbook for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Drug Dependence, outlines, in the main, a minimum set of standards which are relevant and implementable for CARICOM countries, while at the same time complying  with international standards for safety and efficacy.

The Handbook draws on seminal publications in the area of assessing standards of care, input and recommendations from providers of treatment and care for substance dependence/addiction in CARICOM Member States and from the CARICOM Technical Advisory Body I trust that service providers from the public and private sectors, non government organizations, students undertaking drug addiction studies and other agencies engaged in the provision of services and programmes for persons with drug dependency, will find this document a useful guide and source of information.