A TAMWORTH-based ice action group will be established within the next six weeks in response to the growing ice issue in the region.
A meeting of stakeholders in Tamworth on Wednesday heard from police, community representatives, and healthcare and community service workers.
Participants said more needed to be done to not only prevent people using ice, but help them recover and support people around them.
The establishment of a local drug taskforce was one of several recommendations made acting premier Troy Grant following the forum, along with the development of an young person expo, the mapping of current service agencies to fix service gaps, the development of a community education plan with a focus on enabling and the establishment of a support person network to help users’ families cope with issues stemming from ice use.
Mr Grant said he understood the heartache and concern from family members of ice users.
“We heard the devastating story from one mother who opened her heart to us to explain how she suffered with her own son’s experience with ice and how powerless she felt,” Mr Grant said.
“That’s something that really hit home to me today about how do we support those families who often feel ashamed or are hiding the problems that their family members, their sons and daughters, their brothers or sisters, are experiencing on ice.
“We need to support those vulnerable people so they don’t feel isolated and alone and they can actually be equipped with the tools to help us combat the problem in the first place.”
Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson will chair the local ice action group, which will include stakeholders from all parts of the community.
Mr Grant used the Dubbo Minister’s Action Group, which was set up in 2011, as an example of different levels of government, health services and the community working together.
“In Dubbo we had a crisis, particularly in a concentrated social housing estate, so we formed what we called the ministers action group and we brought all the department heads together,” he said.
“We found there were significant overlaps in services and gaps in service provision so we brought everyone together to work holistically.
“We brought a number of strategies together, the deconcentration of that estate, the support of an early intervention program out there called the resilience program, we did some clean ups of the estate, so it was a multi-faceted approach and it has yielded significant benefits to the community. Crime has significantly decreased.
“The community was engaged and they were telling us where the priorities were for them and we responded.”
