IntNSA South Africa’s vision is to improve public wellbeing in South Africa by organising and developing full spectrum addiction care nurses, by advancing evidence-based intervention and treatment along the continuum of alcohol and drug use, and by caring for diverse populations affected by substance use.

IntNSA South Africa’s mission is to build a community of practice of harm reduction & addiction nurses in South Africa in order to provide opportunities for nurses to contribute to the specialized field in the furtherance of public health, social transformation, and the development of the nursing profession. The overall mission of the society is fulfilled through the following aims and objectives

Public benefit aims and objectives

  • Support practices, services and standards of care that are evidence-based, human-rights based and will generate knowledge that increases patient safety, health and wellbeing. Support drug policy development and urgent regional development of a human rights-based approach to substance use and addiction care.
  • Work towards a health-enabling social and political environment which addresses structural drivers of ill health, vulnerability to addiction and reduces stigma and discrimination towards people who use drugs, and their communities. Promote social cohesion and healing from the past.
  • Amplify the contributions of nurses, service users, significant others and patients so that their input into service delivery, policy, research (including research agendas) and resource allocation can positively impact health outcomes in South Africa.
  • Protect the public from misinformation, poor standards of care and fraudulent and unregistered service delivery.

Strategic Goals

  • Develop the IntNSA South Africa local chapter as a forum to network and support nurses working in addiction. Contribute to the development of an African Dept in the future.
  • Identify needs, deficits and gaps of nurses and services and plan interventions and activities to address these.
  • Seek opportunities for members to contribute to education, policy, service delivery and program development in line with our values and mission and to participate in social change activities.
  • Enable nursing knowledge production, the development of nursing theory and practice, and improve public health policy and education.
  • Through research, fundraising, education and advocacy find and develop resources useful to South African nurses in the addiction and mental health sector.
  • Build mechanisms for addressing quality service delivery across the full spectrum of addiction care.

Our values

We operate according to the principles of transparency, diversity, communal effort, active inclusivity, authenticity, intersectionality and the progressive realisation of social justice and human rights for all.

  • We value the art and science of nursing and seek knowledge and skill in the practice of our profession. We support non-professional nurses, and community health workers, to reach their highest potential.
  • Our work domain includes all addiction care related issues (process and substance related) and all novel interventions and treatments concerning psychoactive substances (their associated risks, harms and benefits).
  • Our integral approach to the field includes addressing co-morbidities, precipitating, protective and perpetuating factors and adjacent influences that affect health outcomes in addiction and substance use.
  • We advocate for the application of evidence and theory as foundations of the body of knowledge and clinical skills across all practice settings, in diverse populations, throughout the lifespan.
  • We commit to the development of expert nurses in their clinical, research, education, coordination and advocacy roles. We appreciate these core practice areas as critical to full spectrum addiction care and harm reduction.
  • We value prioritizing work that addresses health and drug policy, education, practice guidelines and standards of care which affect the wellbeing of nurses and the public, at all levels (institutional, local, provincial, national and international) of social organisation.
  • We integrate and apply knowledge from other disciplines and sciences for the benefit of patients, within our scope of practice. We support and collaborate with other addiction professionals and drug user rights advocates. We specifically integrate theory and practice that nursing has not yet benefited from e.g. social change theory, patient-led advocacy, critical diversity literacy, power relations, health behaviour change theory, harm reduction. We use a whole person, multi-disciplinary approach.
  • We ensure that efforts at addressing quality of care aligns with the 7 domains of quality service delivery as used by the South African department of health, and other Southern African countries.
  • We commit to including nurses and voices who are usually excluded from educational, research, leadership or career opportunities so that they may develop to their highest potential.