Twenty-five years ago, a handful of Barbadians who had worked in the United Kingdom and Canada returned home with a troubling realisation: their island had virtually no non-residential support for people struggling with addiction. What existed was limited to males and older people, leaving gaps in care.
“Barbados did not really have a non-residential facility for persons,” recalled Sherryl Griffith, coordinator of services at the Centre for Counselling Addiction Support Alternatives (CASA). “It was mostly for males, and not for younger persons.”
Those concerned professionals didn’t just identify the problem – they became the solution. Using a course assignment as their launching pad, they established what would become CASA, initially called the Coalition Against Substance Abuse, maintaining the same acronym that graces their Westbury Road facility today.
From the beginning, CASA understood something fundamental about Barbadian culture that larger institutions often missed. In a rum-producing nation where alcohol flows freely at weddings, funerals, and birthday parties alike, the line between social drinking and substance abuse can be perilously thin.
“We are a rum-producing country. We’ve got to be honest, that’s one of our main foreign exchange earners,” Griffith stated. “Unfortunately, some people use more than they should. And because our bodies are made differently, it impacted on persons.”
The impact was devastating – affecting work quality, home life, and personal well-being for many. However, CASA’s founders recognised that taking people away from their jobs and families for residential treatment often created more problems than it solved.
“If you’re the only breadwinner, and you are not working because you’re in a residential facility, then where is that funding to come from?” Griffith asked.
Eddie Smith has been CASA’s longest-serving volunteer, 18 years, bringing his background as a mental health specialist and former United Kingdom psychiatric hospital worker to bear on the island’s addiction challenges. His commitment exemplifies the dedication that has kept CASA’s doors open.
“CASA offers a unique service,” Smith said. “It’s offered to people who don’t necessarily need residential care for their addiction but can manage in the community while doing their work, carrying on with their job, and coming in here for sessions to help them deal with their addiction.”
While CASA began with alcohol as its primary focus, the organisation has continuously evolved to meet emerging needs. The arrival of deportees brought new substances such as cannabis into focus. However, nothing prepared them for the seismic shift that came with COVID-19.
“Prior to COVID, things were reasonably okay with some drug abusers and stuff like that – that was our normal bread and butter people that kept us going,” Smith said. “However, since COVID, we had anxiety, phobias, all sorts of things like that seeking our help.”
The pandemic didn’t just change what people needed help with – it revealed the profound psychological damage inflicted by lockdowns and social isolation. Griffith’s analysis is sobering.
“Human beings were created to be social beings, to talk to one another, see one another
. . . You were suddenly not supposed to go
around persons or leave the precincts of your home.”
The organisation’s response was swift and comprehensive. They expanded their mental health offerings and created a 24-hour helpline that ran for nearly two years until it was taken over by another entity.
For someone walking through CASA’s doors for the first time – often feeling vulnerable and uncertain – the first impression matters enormously. That responsibility has fallen to Pauline Eversley-Jones since 2004, when she joined as an administrative assistant and gradually evolved into the administrative officer.
“I am the first person you will see when you come to CASA,” Eversley-Jones said. “I am the person who will welcome you and do all those things to make you feel welcome.”
Her role extends far beyond paperwork. She’s often the first person callers speak with when they’re in crisis, the one who sets up appointments, and crucially, the person who knows what each client is coming for before even their counsellor does.
“When you come in, I know what you come for before even the counsellor knows, because I am the person who gives you that form to fill out,” she said.
CASA’s evolution reflects a growing understanding that addiction and mental health issues exist within complex family and community systems. They now offer programmes spanning from primary schoolchildren, through teenagers and adults, recognising that “children have the same challenges and fears as adults – sometimes more”.
The organisation provides anger management, conflict resolution, family counselling, and relationship therapy. Smith regularly takes mental health programmes into workplaces, acknowledging that “mental health was always there – nobody talked about it before, but they now realise the benefit of it”.
Operating as a non-governmental organisation means CASA constantly balances its expanding mission against limited resources. They depend on corporate sponsors and a quarterly Government subvention.
Currently working to establish a fundraising committee, the organisation continues to seek ways to expand their programming while maintaining the flexible, non-traditional hours that have made them accessible to working people.
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