Minister Göktaş: “We Will Gradually Extend the Project We Launched in Batman across the Country”

Under the cooperation protocol on combating addiction signed between the Ministry of Family and Social Services and Yeşilay (the Turkish Green Crescent), the aim is to extend the pilot implementation launched in Batman across the country. The SESA Institute, one of the stakeholders in the pilot process, shared the experience gained in the field and examples of good practice with participants at the Workshop on Combating Addiction.
An important cooperation protocol was signed between the Ministry of Family and Social Services and Yeşilay with a view to conducting the fight against addiction with a more coordinated, holistic and family-focused approach. Speaking at the “Cooperation Protocol Signing Ceremony with Yeşilay” held at the Sepetçiler Pavilion in Istanbul, Minister of Family and Social Services Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş stated that addiction cannot be treated merely as an individual health problem; it is a multidimensional social risk affecting many areas, from family relationships to education and from working life to social integration.
In the speech, Minister Göktaş stated that a pilot implementation based on social risk had been launched in Batman, and announced that this model would be gradually extended across the country. Göktaş announced that, within the scope of the Combating Addiction Project carried out in Batman, the teams had so far visited 1092 households, that individuals at risk of addiction and their families had been reached, and that those in need had been referred to health, social support, employment, education and psychological support mechanisms.
Minister Göktaş stated that within the scope of the pilot implementation 246 citizens in need of treatment had been referred to the health system, that the employment processes of individuals able to enter working life had been supported, and that education and psychological support processes had been initiated for 291 children and young people in the risk group. Göktaş emphasised that the field data obtained show that combating addiction requires a multidimensional model of intervention focusing not only on the individual but also on the family and the social environment.
The protocol signed aims to facilitate access by individuals who are addicted or at risk of addiction to the support services they need, to strengthen referral processes to Yeşilay’s prevention, counselling and rehabilitation services, to support post-rehabilitation social integration work and to increase inter-institutional coordination.
As the SESA Institute, we consider it important that the findings obtained from the field experience of the pilot implementation in Batman contribute to policy development processes. For combating addiction to produce effective results, a strong basis for cooperation must be established between public institutions, local actors, civil society organisations, academic circles and field teams.
At the Workshop on Combating Addiction organised in this context, the SESA Institute, one of the stakeholders in the pilot implementation, contributed to the extension of the process across the country by sharing with participants the field observations, implementation experience and good examples gained during the work carried out in Batman.
In an assessment of the matter, Prof. Veysel Ayhan, Director of the SESA Institute, stated that they welcomed the announcement by Minister of Family and Social Services Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş that the pilot implementation launched in Batman would be extended across the country, and said that the cooperation established between the Ministry and Yeşilay was an important step in combating addiction.
Stating that the SESA Institute had shared during the workshop the experience and observations it had gained from the fieldwork carried out in Batman, Prof. Ayhan drew attention to the importance of approaches that place the family, the social environment and social solidarity at the centre of combating addiction.
The SESA Institute will continue to contribute to the development of preventive, protective and social integration-strengthening policies in combating addiction, and to pursue its academic and institutional work so that field experience gained at local level can be turned into models applicable at national scale.