Why we stopped using the term 'aftercare'.
Sarah J MacLeanGabriel CaluzziMark FerryAndrew BruunJennifer SkattebolJoanne NealeJoanne BryantPublished in: Drug and alcohol review (2021)
The words we choose to describe alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatments and interventions reveal assumptions about how we understand AOD use. Moreover, they have important implications for how the treatment is imagined, implemented and funded. Service provision which follows engagement in an intensive (usually residential) program is often called 'aftercare' in the international AOD field. In this commentary, we argue that the term 'aftercare' fails to articulate the nature of ongoing care required by people who are managing AOD use. We maintain that 'aftercare' positions post-residential care as being less important than other treatment modalities, rather than as integral to a continuum of care. It is a term that implies that care should be acute, like much treatment delivered through a medical model, and assumes that people follow linear pathways in managing their AOD use. Assumptions embedded in the term 'aftercare' such as these may disincline governments from funding ongoing services for people exiting intensive programs. Alternative terms including 'continuing coordinated care' more aptly signal the integrated and ongoing service provision that should be available to support people in sustaining changes initiated through other AOD interventions.
Keyphrases
- healthcare
- palliative care
- quality improvement
- preterm infants
- primary care
- mental health
- affordable care act
- physical activity
- pain management
- gene expression
- liver failure
- genome wide
- combination therapy
- smoking cessation
- chronic pain
- extracorporeal membrane oxygenation
- hepatitis b virus
- acute respiratory distress syndrome