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  • Mental Health Presentations in the AOD Sector | Highlighting the challenge and working towards solutions
    • March 27, 2025
    • Posted by: Trudi Jordan
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    This report, drawing on data provided by the Victorian alcohol and other drug (AOD) sector and correlated against data from the Victorian Agency for Health Information, confirms long held anecdotal evidence, that people presenting for alcohol and drug treatment in Victoria do so with very high levels of mental illness and psychological distress.

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  • VAADA Annual Report 2024
    • December 3, 2024
    • Posted by: Trudi Jordan
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    Over the past year, the VAADA team has remained committed to addressing a disjointed and at times, fragmented service system. We have chosen to drive our efforts to advocate for meaningful reform and enhanced service delivery around access to treatment, data gaps, workforce sustainability, funding and the integration of intersecting systems of care.

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  • Treatment Delayed is Treatment Denied
    • September 23, 2024
    • Posted by: Trudi Jordan
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    VAADA’s seventh sector demand survey reveals that more Victorians are waiting for AOD treatment than at any time since the pandemic. Following a survey of 38 service providers across Victoria between June and July 2024, at least 4615 people were waiting for some form of AOD treatment on any given day within that period. This figure is 93% higher than the September 2020 result of 2385 people on the daily waitlist.

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  • Care and Complexity: Towards a re-designed Victorian AOD Service System
    • September 10, 2024
    • Posted by: Trudi Jordan
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    In 2023, the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association (VAADA), engaged the Drug Policy Modelling Program, University of New South Wales (UNSW), to review the current state of the Victorian Alcohol & Other Drug (AOD) treatment system.

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  • Sentencing drug law reform in Victoria: A chronically relapsing disorder?
    • November 23, 2023
    • Posted by: Trudi Jordan
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    This monograph – by leading Victorian expert in sentencing law Professor Arie Freiberg – examines the 170-year history of drug sentencing reform in Victoria. Despite the long and complex history of drug criminalisation, this is the first document to examine these issues in the Victorian context. From the fines, bonds and imprisonment of the early colony, through multiple Inebriates Acts, and the development of community-based orders, Professor Freiberg highlights the tensions that arise from attempts to control drinking and drug use via the criminal law. Professor Freiberg offers a sobering history of drug sentencing law reform and highlights the lessons that ideally should be learnt from these successive failures.

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  • VAADA Annual Report 2023
    • November 20, 2023
    • Posted by: Trudi Jordan
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    To say that 2022-2023 has been a big year for VAADA is no understatement. As we slowly adjust to life after the pandemic, the Victorian alcohol and other drug (AOD) sector continues to face a mix of challenges and opportunities.

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  • Victorian Alcohol and other Drugs Workforce Development Survey Report 2023
    • October 12, 2023
    • Posted by: Caitlyn Wilson
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    The Victorian Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) Workforce Develpment Survey 2023 was conducted to inform an understanding of current experiences and challenges across the AOD sector. It also sought to identify opportunities to build workforce capacity and capability to ensure the sector is able to effectively meet the needs of service users now and into the future. This report presents a hight-level summary of the survey findings based on overall experiences and perspective of people working in the Victorian AOD sector.

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  • What we heard – Summary Report from the AOD Sector Consultation on the Development of the Statewide Wellbeing Plan
    • December 22, 2022
    • Posted by: Julia Daly
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    Background The Mental Health and Wellbeing Promotion Office in its task to develop a Statewide Wellbeing Strategy, following the recommendation from Victoria’s Mental Health Royal Commission, sought submissions from various

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  • VAADA Annual Report 2022
    • December 2, 2022
    • Posted by: Julia Daly
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    The past year has brought many challenges to Victoria’s alcohol and drug (AOD) sector. At VAADA we have dealt with a range of issues spanning Covid-19, mental health reform, workforce

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  • Local Mental Health and Wellbeing Service Framework: Summary and reflections from an AOD perspective
    • October 19, 2022
    • Posted by: Julia Daly
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    1. About VAADA VAADA is a non-government peak organisation representing Victoria’s publicly-funded alcohol and other drug (AOD) services. VAADA aims to support and promote strategies that prevent and reduce the

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