SUBSTANCE MISUSE & ALCOHOL ADVOCACY

Advocates:   Andrew Talbot   (Substance Misuse)
                   Joan Coman      (Alcohol)

Funding Body:   Wirral Drug & Alcohol Action Team (DAAT)

The aim is to advise clients or their families who have, or have had, drug or alcohol dependency problems.
It is anticipated that this intervention will lessen the likelihood of a client relapsing or possibly becoming involved in criminal activity. The Government has calculated that for every £1 spent on drug support work, £9.50 is saved in cutting associated crime!

“Advice Points” at ARCH Initiatives (Wirral based Drug & Alcohol Support Agency)

ARCH Initiatives’ clients are both ‘open access’, i.e. self referrals, and clients who have been referred there by the Criminal Justice system, such as Bail Support and ‘Test On Arrest’, whereby every individual arrested as a result of acquisitive crime is tested for substance misuse, and if tested positive has to attend for mandatory drug testing as a condition of their bail.

Linked in with this is The Pier Project, which is a team of Police officers, Probation Officers and a drug support worker. Their remit is intensive monitoring and support of prolific offenders whose offending has been to support their drug addiction.  Through Arch Initiatives, links are established with Phoenix Futures who are an international drug and alcohol detoxification and rehabilitation organisation.

Clients of Phoenix Futures undertake long-term and expensive detoxification and rehabilitation in order that they can return to the community substance-free. Andrew’s role with Phoenix is to get their clients to confront their problems such as housing, debt, etc very early in their treatment, so that their return to the community proceeds as seamlessly as possible once their rehabilitation is complete. Relapse after rehabilitation is not uncommon, so his support hopefully helps to minimise the risk of relapse.

Andrew’s presence at ARCH Initiatives allows the drug support workers there to concentrate on their primary role of helping their clients to remain, or work toward, being substance-free. Clients are mainly seen on an appointment basis, which is an element in rebuilding and reinforcing structure in what are quite often chaotic lives.

Andrew says  “My background was originally in housing, and the second most common issue that clients present me with concerns their housing. I strongly believe that the quality of a person’s accommodation impacts significantly on their mental health. Because of my interest I was invited to sit on one of the steering-groups set up to shape Wirral Borough Council’s Homeless Strategy. I also sit on Wirral Borough Council’s Housing Priority Panel which helps vulnerable clients to obtain tenancies more quickly. As a result of this we have been able to identify where ‘blockages’ occur in the system, thereby permitting our more chaotic client group to access decent hostel places, and enabling the more stable ones to integrate into mainstream housing. We thereby have a strong influence on how local government perceives homelessness and its responsibility toward the more vulnerable members of Wirral’s population”.