Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com Introduction Substance abuse is one of the worrisome social maladies that affect everyone, everywhere, either directly or indirectly and street children are no exception. The misuse of alcohol and other substance has major public health consequences and its high prevalence calls for concern especially in the hands of young children. By current situation, children seems to be the target as the new market for drug industry locally and globally as they do consume drugs just like adults without knowing the consequences of using drugs. To be sure, a study by WHO 1 pointed out that between 25% and 90% of street children use psychoactive substances of some kind globally. In Africa more than 10 million of street children spend greater part of the day on streets, studies from 14 countries including Nigeria reveal that street children’s reported inhalant use of 47% (95% CI=36-58%) and this implies a signifcant gap in literature, including dearth of data on physical and mental health outcomes and relationship of street children with an upsurge in substance use and abuse. 2,3 This was also reported in Kenya by National Association of Probation Offcers that children start to experiment drugs as young as 8 years old. They start using drugs so as to ft in peer groups, feeling high and tasting new sensation of drugs. 4 In Nigeria, a study noted that unrestrained exposure of street children to street life often makes them vulnerable to the use of different psychoactive substances and its prevalence among them is nothing lesser than 45%. 5 Sadly, substance abuse among street children posits severe social and public health consequences. The negative outcomes include adverse medical events (i.e. emergency medical events or death), poor labour market productivity, lower educational attainment, and increase in criminal activity as well as proliferation of addiction-subsequent drug use. 6 Children are usually vulnerable to substance abuse because adolescence stage is a critical time for brain development. At this stage, children are always curious and yearning to explore their world. They tend to experiment new things around and within their environment such that if proper attention and supervision is not given to them their passive nature to succumb easily to pressures around and within them can effortlessly made a victim of substance abuse most especially the homeless street children. Against this backdrop, it is evident that everyone, including social workers, has role to play in preventing substance abuse among the vulnerable young population in Nigeria. However, analysis of these social workers’ noble roles has not received suffcient attention in the extant Nigeria literature. Thus, this paper is subdivided into different sub-sections. These sections examine in detail the concept of substance abuse, street children, defnition of social work and its major three methods of intervention and how this three methods of intervention can be used to address and curb the menace of substance abuse among street children as well as possibly ameliorate the effects of substance abuse on socio-economic development in sub-Sahara Africa and precisely Nigeria. Social work Apparently, there are different defnitions of social work as a concept. But for the purpose of this paper, the defnition provided by Stroup 7 will be considered. In which case, this author defned social work by considering the primary goals which is seeks to attain in society. From this perspective therefore, social work can be referred to as a complex and organized effort put in place to obtain the highest personal and social satisfactions for individuals, groups, and communities. The emphasis here is on the good, which is sought, the goal which is to be achieved. 7 In order to achieve the goal of better life for individuals within the society, social work has three major methods of operation and intervention. These three methods are: social casework, social group work and community welfare organization. Sociol Int J. 2018;2(3):271‒274. 271 © 2018 Owoyomi. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially. Substance abuse among street children: implication for social workers in Nigeria Volume 2 Issue 3 - 2018 Victor Adekunle Owoyomi Department of Sociology, University of Lagos, Nigeria Correspondence: Victor Adekunle Owoyomi, Department of Sociology, University of Lagos, Akoka, Nigeria, Tel +23407031966115, Email owoyomivictor@gmail.com Received: May 04, 2018| Published: June 25, 2018 Abstract This paper explores substance abuse among street children: implications for social worker in Nigeria. Understanding substance abuse as a graving worrisome public health issue is very germane for all social workers’ targetted intervention around the world including sub-Sahara Africa countries. Substance abuse seems to be one of the strenuous problems to detect by social workers especially among the vulnerable street children since they are often neglected and habitually underrepresented in public health research. The phenomenon of street children and their vulnerability to substance abuse represent a wakeup call for the noble role of social workers in Nigeria. To further extrapolate this issue, application of the three social workers’ methods and techniques- social case work, social group work and community welfare organisations were critically reviewed and a logical conclusion was drawn that combating the menace of substance abuse among the vulnerable young population require services like but not limited to identification and assessment services, direct treatment/therapeutic services, outreach/education and research in order to have a safe and healthy society with zero tolerance for substance abuse specifically among street children in Nigeria. Keywords: substance abuse, street children, social worker, public health, Nigeria Sociology International Journal Review Article Open Access