Counselling and Addiction Services

We provide counselling services for individuals and families challenged by issues of addictive disorders such as substance misuse and gambling addiction. RISE has been operating an adolescent outpatient drug programme for youth referred from the Children’s Drug Treatment Programme. This is a 12-week non-residential programme involving psycho-educational sessions, life skills workshops, family day activities, and recreation. Furthermore, through the support of the Betting Gaming and Lotteries Commission, RISE operates the only comprehensive programme for individuals with gambling related problems in Jamaica and the English-speaking Caribbean.

Counselling services begin with intake screening and assessment, after which a treatment plan is established which will involve counselling (and drug testing where applicable).

We recognize addiction as a family disease, so we place great emphasis on providing counselling services for family members as well; both at a group and individual level. Our telephone lifeline which offer counselling, referrals, and information operates from 8:30am through midnight, 7 days a week.

Training and Education

RISE provides training and workshops in specific areas:

  • Employee Assistance Programmes
  • Substance Abuse
  • Gambling Prevention and Treatment, targeting primarily guidance counsellors. Further, training is provided to peer counsellors (students) to prepare them to do interventions and referrals with their peers in schools.
  • Responsible Gaming Workshops target employees in the gaming industry as all are mandated to receive training annually.

RISE is a lead training organization for all gaming lounges and is tasked with initiation of annual responsible gaming training island wide. Under the gambling prevention, treatment, and responsible gaming project guidance counsellors have been engaged in topics such as:

  • Gambling disorder diagnosis
  • Prevention techniques
  • Fundamentals of gambling related problems
  • Adolescent gambling related issues

Similarly, substance abuse counsellors offer services in the areas of:

  • Treatment modalities
  • Adolescent development
  • Fundamentals of addiction
  • Diagnosis and assessment
  • Evidenced based best practices in adolescent treatment