This recently completed project by the CEC aims to create awareness about the problems of drug misuse among seniors in general, and ethnocultural seniors in particular, and provide culturally appropriate strategies for prevention and intervention. The project partners were the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress-Saskatchewan Provincial Council. This 18-month project was funded by the Population Health Fund, Health Canada.

A training kit was prepared for health care providers to help communities to develop and conduct their own workshops at various levels. Special efforts were made to involve a variety of stakeholders in the design and development of the training materials.

About 100 health care providers were successfully trained in Vancouver, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, St. John’s, and Halifax using the train-the-trainers approach.

Training Kit for Health Care Providers

The training kit includes:

• a resource and training manual,
• a model medication card for seniors to list prescription and over-the-counter medications,
• checklist in 13 languages for seniors to use medication safely,
• IYOP brochure on "Achievements and Contributions of Seniors of Diverse Cultural Backgrounds", and
• other useful information on selected topics.

The Resource and Training manual is intended mainly for health care providers as a tool for helping and educating seniors from diverse cultural backgrounds in the safe usage of their medications. The manual will also be of interest to those: (1) who prepare and conduct workshops on medication usage by seniors; (2) who work with ethnocultural seniors; (3) who develop initiatives to promote safe medication use by ethnocultural seniors.

The Resource and Training Manual should serve as a reference for health care providers in the community requiring information on medication use and misuse by ethnocultural seniors and it will increase a health care provider’s chances of being accurately understood in a variety of cultures.

Medication Card for Seniors

This card was designed and developed to help seniors keep track of their medication. The card is unique in that it has provision for recording not only prescription medicines but also over-the-counter medicines (herbs, homeopathic remedies, vitamins, cold pills etc.) which are commonly used by seniors. The card will help the doctor and the pharmacist to make sure that the medicines taken by the senior work well and the senior is not taking too many medicines. An instruction sheet on how and why to use the card, and a supplemental card for those seniors who are on more than six medications at a time are included. The card with the accessories in a plastic case is provided in the training kit.

“Achievements and Contributions of Seniors of Diverse Cultural Backgrounds: Selected profiles”- IYOP Brochure