Professionals

Our Eligibility Criteria

Applicants must:

• Be male and aged 18 or over.
• Need support to maintain abstinence-based recovery from drug and alcohol dependency.
• Be eligible for a housing benefit claim.
• Be motivated and willing to engage with others who are also establishing abstinence-based lives within a mutual aid community.
• Be able to pass drug and alcohol screening on arrival.
• Not require psychoactive drugs for a serious mental health condition (please ask if you have any questions about this. We can help signpost to more suitable projects if this is an issue for your client).
• Have no current or ongoing psychiatric diagnosis which would preclude full engagement.

Due to the age and nature of our premises, we regret that we are not able to be fully compliant with the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and subsequent legislation. Please check to see if our accommodation will meet your client’s needs. If we can’t we will be happy to signpost to organisations that can.

Our Service

Our accommodation is specifically for adult men who are eligible for housing benefit and want to use mutual aid as a means to maintain abstinence based recovery from addiction to drugs and or alcohol. We are not a rehab. All residents must be willing to do the personal development and other work needed for them to be ready and able to live healthy and enjoyable independent lives over the long term.

We provide ‘temporary accommodation’. This means tenure is by licence agreement. This can be for up to two years although most residents are ready to move on long before this.

As temporary accommodation, a serious breach or repeated breaches of a resident’s licence agreement can lead to immediate eviction.

Our staff deliver ‘Personal Support’ and ‘Intensive Housing Management’. We do not provide ‘drug or alcohol treatment’ or ‘personal care’. Our residents are responsible for working their own recovery programs using the local mutual aid networks and the professional and voluntary organisations we signpost them to. Our service is principally a safe and supported community of like-minded individuals who have all made a conscious decision to live abstinence-based lives within a mutual aid, recovery based environment.

Referral

Please click the link below for our Referral Pack. Once we have this we can assess whether your client meets our eligibility criteria. If they do we will arrange a personal assessment, ideally at our building, but on Zoom if needed.

Assessments

During assessment we will:

• Clarify the purpose of the admission in discussion with both the professional referrer and client so that an initial plan of support with relevant interventions can be in place from the point of admission, with proposed outcomes clearly defined
• Take a history of existing and past drug and alcohol use and previous treatment, support, and detoxification episodes
• Clarify any psychiatric or medical issues, identifying their likely impact on engagement, and exploring if external support is needed to enable full participation
• Carry out a comprehensive risk assessment around, for example, any history of violence, arson, self-harm, etc.
• Note any current prescriptions and other medical treatments
• Clearly define any appropriate liaison arrangements
• Clarify transport arrangements to and from the Project

Admission

On admission, new residents are given a copy of ‘House Rules and Expectations’ and the ‘House Timetable’. We explain these to them and they sign them as their contract of engagement with us.

We introduce them to the staff team and other residents, show them around the building and give them their room key.

They are allocated a ‘buddy’ for their first two weeks with us. This person is an experienced member of the community who will help them to engage and accompany them when they leave the building for their first two weeks. After two weeks they receive their electronic key fob which allows them to enter and leave as they wish.

General Medical Needs

All residents are expected to be registered with a local GP. We will help them to do this.

Substance Misuse Screening

All new residents are required to provide either a saliva or urine sample for drug and alcohol screening on arrival. We run as a complete abstinence community and will seek further samples randomly during their stay. A positive test or refusal to supply a sample will lead to immediate eviction.

Allocation of Support Worker

All new residents are allocated a support worker. This person will be their ‘Responsible Practitioner’ who will oversee the creation of, and engagement with their ‘Support Plan’. They will conduct the majority of the resident’s weekly 1-2-1 support sessions.

The Support Plan

The support plan includes things like:

• Any medical interventions
• Any psychiatric needs and interventions
• An in-depth review of the resident’s previous life experiences and their connection with their recent drug and/or alcohol use and related problems
• The recovery process and where they are within this
• Engagement with the mutual aid community
• Practical issues which need resolution such as welfare benefits, making contact with family and relevant professionals, outstanding legal issues, debts, etc.