Academic labels petrol sniffing program a failure

A lecturer at the Northern Territory's Menzies School of Health Research says an intervention program to combat petrol sniffing in a remote community has failed.

Kate Senior says the failure was not because of a lack of will on the part of the people at Ngukurr in south-east Arnhem Land.

Dr Senior says money was the problem.

"It's just very difficult for communities to develop programs in isolation," she said.

"I mean these are programs that need resources.

"Communities of 900 people might find it very difficult to actually have the level of resources and support to actually keep a sustained program going."

Dr Senior says if people in the communities are to make a difference then they need long-term support and advice.

She says intervention programs also need to be ongoing.

"I think a problem with a lot of the interventions is that they are fairly sporadic, they [are] often quite crisis driven...they respond to a problem at the moment rather than looking at it in a much more long-term way," she said.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Pubdate: Mon, 11 July 2005
Copyright: 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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