Global News in the Maritimes has a short news clip on Alcohol consumption in women (Dec. 29, 2011).

In less than two minutes, the video clip looks at trends in drinking, women as a new alcohol market, and reviews the new low risk drinking guidelines.

I found the info about women as a growing market for the alcohol industry interesting. They look at the case study of Girls’ Night Out Wines which is a series of Ontario VQA wines produced by Colio Estate Wines. “The makers of Girls’ Night Out wanted a brand that spoke directly to women and their experiences. It was the number one launch in 2008 and remains a bestseller.”

The reporter interviews Alison Modesto, Sales and Marketing Coordinator at Colio Estate Wines, who says: “Women have something like 85% of the purchasing decision power for wines between the $15 and $20 range. So, once we were successful with our launch, I think that sort of awoke the other wineries to realize ‘Hey, this is another market.’ ” According to Alan Middleton, professor of marketing at the Schulich School of Business: “It used to be that women accounted for no more than 14-20% of all alcoholic beverages purchased.” As I’ve mentioned in other posts, this isn’t a trend limited to Canada.

For more on this topic, see earlier posts:

• Alcohol Marketing in the 21st Century (October 31, 2011)
• Gender Convergence in Youth Binge Drinking (October 20, 2011)
• Pregnant women provide a niche market for alcohol-free wine producers  (September 30, 2011)
• Low-calorie alcoholic beverages target women (June 1, 2011)
• A Glimpse Inside the UK Alcohol Marketing Industry (February 14, 2011)

Last year, the Best Start Resource Centre in Ontario produced an 8-page brochure, in French and English, for moms and moms-to-be. The brochures included information about alcohol use in pregnancy and a number of recipes for non-alcoholic beverages or “mocktails.” (For some random trivia, see an earlier post Who coined the term “mocktail” anyway?)

The Centre has just released perforated recipe cards for mocktails that complement the brochure. In addition to recipes, the resource contains information about the effects of alcohol during pregnancy and information about where to learn more.

The cards say:

Be Safe: Have an alcohol-free pregnancy. Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can cause permanent birth defects and brain damage to your baby. There is no safe time to drink alcohol during pregnancy. Your baby’s brain is developing throughout pregnancy. In fact, it is best to stop drinking before you get pregnant.

This is one of the first resources I’ve seen that makes a key point of mentioning that there is no kind of alcohol that is safer than another: No safe time, No safe amount, No safe kind.

Print copies can be ordered through Best Start Resource Centre. Or, you can view and download the resource for free from here.

From Stilettos to Moccasins: A Guide for Group Discussion© is a half-day health intervention workshop, available at no cost to communities, which raises awareness about the role that cultural identity and stigma have in the healing journeys of criminalized First Nations, Métis and Inuit women in treatment for drug abuse.

The workshop is based on the key finding of the project, which is, to heal from drug abuse, there is a need for women to re-claim, and for some to claim for the first time, a healthy self-identity as an Aboriginal woman. The workshop is designed to be facilitated by community members with community members. (For more on the From Stilettos to Moccasins research project and music video, see an earlier post here).

Workshop kits are now available that include a 30-minute training video and all  materials required to conduct a workshop. There are also 14  “project ambassadors” who have been hired from across Canada to assist with implementing the workshops.

For more information about the workshops or to order a workshop kit, click here.

With WordPress, Wikipedia, BoingBoing, TwitPic, and other major Internet presences going “black” today as part of anti-SOPA protests, it does make one consider the importance of the Internet in our lives. (To learn more about SOPA, you can check out this gizmodo.com article What is SOPA?)

The Internet has certainly provided women with space to connect and speak up on issues ranging from politics to beauty to creativity. Some of the best discussions on girls, women, and alcohol that I’ve seen are happening in on-line spaces. (For example, see a recent discussion on feministing.com More on why victim blaming is not a good way to prevent binge drinking).

Kickaction.ca is a bilingual all-girl online space that is bringing together a growing community of young women to use media and the internet to their own advantage. Right now, as part of their efforts to make Kickaction as kicka**  as possible, they’re asking: “As a young woman, what do you get out of participating in all-girl online spaces, like Kickaction?” If you’re a young woman or know any, you can leave comments here before February 14th (and have a chance of winning an iTunes giftcard).

Kickaction is a project of the Girls Action Foundation. Visit their website to learn more about their amazing work across Canada.

Image via www.cnc.bc.ca

Women who have FASD are considered to be a high risk group for having an alcohol-exposed pregnancy. (For more on this issue, see an earlier post Women with FASD, Substance Use, and FASD Prevention, March 7, 2011).

NAT member Anne Guarasci and colleagues at the College of New Caledonia have developed a resource for front-line workers who work with women who have FASD or FASD behaviours and characteristics. The resource uses stories and examples collected primarily from outreach workers, group facilitators and caregivers in BC’s northern interior region.

The resource was developed as a result of recommendations from Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program, Community Action Plan for Children and Aboriginal Headstart Program frontline workers and coordinators for a resource to help bring clarity to the issue of FASD and provide suggestions for practical strategies and supports. These programs target families with children from 0 to 6 years of age who are considered to be at risk. Many program participants struggle with poverty, unemployment, unstable living conditions, violence and substance misuse and may have difficulty with relationships and parenting.

In addition to the use of individual stories to explore issues for these pregnant and parenting women, there’s a section on facilitating prenatal and parenting groups for participants who may have FASD.

You can download the resource here or from the College of New Caledonia website. You can learn more about the community FASD prevention program Healthier Babies Brighter Futures here and about the College’s FASD programs here.

Reference:

Guarasci, A. (2011). Empowering Front-Line Staff and Families Through a Collection of Lived Experiences: Supporting women who have FASD behaviours and characteristics and/or other related disabilities. College of New Caledonia: Lakes District Region.

Image via www.cnc.bc.ca

The University of Saskatchewan and National Native Addictions Partnership Foundation are involved with a community-driven project to explore the role of Aboriginal traditional culture in healing from addictions.

A provincial-wide ‘community conversation’ will run throughout Saskatchewan from January 6, 2012 until February 27, 2012. Saskatchewan residents are invited to share how Aboriginal culture has helped them, or someone they know, on the journey of healing from addictions.  The ‘conversation’ can take place in  many ways – through poetry, drawings, videos, and stories. Visit the project website here for more.

You can get a taste of where this conversation might head by taking a look at three healing stories that three Saskatchewan residents are sharing through YouTube. The stories discuss the role of traditional prayer and children in healing, healing through relationships, and the importance of youth voice.

Dirk Hanson has written a great piece for the magazine Scientific American on how women experience the consequences of alcohol misuse differently than men and how this often requires different treatment approaches. Read the article Women’s Response to Alcohol Suggests Need for Gender-Specific Treatment Programs (December 16, 2011) on the Scientific American website here.

Hanson reports on the growing body of research supporting treatment approaches specifically for women. For those of you who have worked in the FASD prevention field for a while, this is great to see as it supports what you’ve been seeing in practice for years. Women-only treatment programs are often threatened with closure when funding cuts and changes are made so hopefully this body of research will help build a case for not only keeping existing programs but continuing to expand the range of treatment options available to women.

Hanson is a freelance science reporter and author and has written extensively on the subject of addiction. He has a wonderful blog called the Addiction Inbox: The Science of Substance Abuse and is a frequent contributor to the recovery website The Fix.

Postcard from a campaign by the European FASD Alliance supporting labels on alcohol beverages to warn women not to consume alcohol during pregnancy.

Last fall, 15,000 postcards were reportedly sent to national and EU health ministers and policymakers throughout Europe.

The postcards show outlines of bottles of alcoholic drinks with stickers provided to stick onto the bottles. The pictogram is the same one that is mandatory on alcoholic beverages sold in France. (See an earlier post, FASD Prevention in France, May 12, 2011). In other countries, some beverages have warning labels and others don’t. The group states: “We believe that all European women have the right to know of the dangers of drinking during pregnancy. We support standardized, mandatory health warning labels on containers of alcoholic drinks and on advertisements for these products.”

The European FASD Alliance includes organizations and individuals in over 20 European countries. Visit their website here for more information about the campaign (including links to Facebook and Twitter so you can follow the progress of the campaign).

The New Choices program in Hamilton, Ontario has been in the media recently as it will be losing its major source of funding at the end of March. (See Addiction treatment ‘lifeline’ losing major funding, January 5 2012).

The New Choices program is an example of a “one-stop shopping” model for women with substance use issues who are pregnant and/or parenting young children. The program components include addiction groups and counselling, nutrition counselling and skill development, parenting education, peer support, and an enriched children’s program.

In addition, it provides linkages with prenatal services, a family physician, a perinatal home visiting program, and other services as needed. The program is not set in terms of a specific structure or length of time which allows services to be tailored to meet the needs of individual women. Attendance at New Choices ranges from 1 to 12 months, with the average length of involvement being 4 months. Sometimes clients will be involved for a few months, leave, and then return to the program at a later date.

Other similar “one-stop shop” models in Canada include Breaking the Cycle in Toronto, Sheway in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, the Maxxine Wright Community Health Centre in Surrey, and Streetworks’ Supports for Homeless Pregnant Women in Edmonton.

Many of these programs have been designed to address barriers to accessing prenatal services that exist for many women who use substances. These include: fear of losing custody of children; fear of forced treatment or criminal prosecution; lack of treatment readiness; coexisting mental illness; guilt, denial and/or embarrassment regarding their substance use; and lack of transportation and/or child care.

Other systems-level issues often create barriers to care such as negative attitudes of health care providers towards pregnant women who use substances and the traditional separation of prenatal care and substance abuse treatment.

Further reading: Integrated Treatment Approaches for Pregnant and Parenting Women with Substance Use Issues

Cailleaux, M. and Dechief, L. “I’ve found my voice”: Wraparound as a Promising Strength-based Team Process for High-risk Pregnant and Early Parenting Women. Surrey, BC: Atira Women’s Resource Society

Leslie, M., DeMarchi, G., Motz, M. (2007). Breaking the Cycle: An Essay in Three Voices. In Boyd, S.C. and Marcellus, L. (Eds). With Child: Substance Use During Pregnancy: A Woman-Centred Approach. Peterborough: Fernwood Publishing. pp. 91-104.

Poole, Nancy. (2000). Evaluation report of the Sheway Project for high-risk pregnant and parenting women. Vancouver: British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health.

Racine, N., Motz, M., Leslie, M. and Pepler, D. (2009). Breaking the Cycle Pregnancy Outreach Program: Reaching out to improve the health and well-being of pregnant substance involved mothers. Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering, 11 (1): 279-290. (Free full-text here).

Sword, W., Jack, S., Niccols, A., Milligan, K., Henderson, J., and Thabane, L. (2009). Integrated programs for women with substance use issues and their children: a qualitative meta-synthesis of processes and outcomes. Harm Reduction Journal, 6:32. doi:10.1186/1477-7517-6-32. (Free full-text through PMC)

Sword, W., Niccols, A., and Fan, A. (2004). “New Choices” for women with addictions: perceptions of program participants. BMC Public Health, 4:10. PMCID: 420243. doi:  10.1186/1471-2458-4-10. (Free full-textthrough PMC)

The Streetworks Program in Edmonton has an amazing resource for pregnant women living in an inner city context. (For more on the program, visit the website or see an earlier post Streetworks’ Supports for Homeless Pregnant Women project).

This 50 page guide to pregnancy for women who are street-involved covers everything from prenatal care (e.g., doctors & stuff, vitamins) to food to harm reduction information on using while pregnant to getting ready for labour to taking or not taking baby home. It has tips and suggestions in the form of “Street Talk” boxes which have been developed by program staff (some of whom were once homeless and pregnant at one time) who have a good sense of what realities are for the women they work with.

In terms of information about pregnancy and alcohol, the guide says: “The safest option for your baby is to not use alcohol, cigarettes, or any drugs while you’re pregnant. What you should know is that the two worst things to use for your baby are alcohol and tobacco. Both of these have really long term effects on your baby, and the less you can use of them, the better.” There’s also a page called “The Problem with Booze.”

The resource is available in PDF on the Streetworks website and is free to download for use in educational contexts.