Treatment

Nationally in 2018–19, in episodes for clients' own drug use:

  • amphetamines (36%), cannabis (30%), and alcohol (18%) were the most common PDOCs for diversion treatment episodes
  • most police diversion episodes were for cannabis (50%), while most court diversion episodes related to amphetamines (41%)
  • counselling (35%), assessment only (21%), and information and education only (19%) were the most common main treatment types for diversion episodes
  • two–thirds (68%) of diversion episodes had an expected completion, compared to 58% for non–diversion episodes.

In the five years from 2014–15 to 2018–19, at the national level:

  • the proportion of all diversion treatment episodes with amphetamines as the PDOC increased from just over 1 in 5 (22.9%) to 35.8%, while episodes with cannabis as the PDOC decreased from 38.0% to 30.5%. This pattern was similar for both police and court diversion episodes
  • information and education only continued to be the most common main treatment type in police diversion episodes, while counselling remained the most common treatment in court diversion episodes
  • each year, over two-thirds of diversion episodes ended with an expected completion; this was consistently higher than for non-diversion episodes.

The ‘All diversion clients’ dashboard shows the main treatment type for closed treatment episodes provided to diversion and non-diversion clients. Nationally in 2018–19, counselling was the most common main treatment type in treatment episodes provided to both diversion (35% of episodes) and non-diversion (39%) clients. This was followed by assessment only (21% for diversion and 18.2% for non-diversion episodes). The ‘Police & court clients’ dashboard shows that, nationally in 2018–19, counselling was the most common treatment type provided to court diversion clients (37% of episodes), while most treatment episodes provided to police diversion clients had information and education only as the main treatment type (33%).

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This dashboard shows the proportion of treatment episodes by referral source, principal drug of concern, and treatment end reason. Nationally in 2018–19, the most common principal drug of concern in episodes for diversion clients was amphetamines (36% of treatment episodes), followed by cannabis (31%) and alcohol (18%). For police diversion clients, the most common principal drug of concern was cannabis (50% of episodes), while for court diversion clients it was amphetamines (41%). Non-diversion clients were most likely to report alcohol as their principal drug of concern (42% of episodes).

The dashboard also shows that expected/planned completion was the most common treatment end reason for episodes for both diversion (68% of episodes) and non-diversion (58%) clients, followed by unplanned completion (17% for diversion episodes and 23% for non-diversion episodes).

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