NETWORKSUPPORTING FAMILIES SPECIAL

OUTREACH IN BIRMINGHAM PENTONVILE PEER SUPPORT

SUPPORTING FAMILIES SPECIAL

SUPPORTING FAMILIES AND AFFECTED OTHERS AT PHOENIX

PHOENIX AT THE PEER AWARDS TRAINING AND TRAVELLING

OCT 2014

ISSUE 25

THE ITALIAN JOBCELEBRATE

SAFEGUARDING PEER TO PEER

EDITOR’S LETTER

This month, to tie in with Adfam’s 30th Anniversary campaign ‘tackling stigma’, Network is a Supporting Families Special. We’ve been hearing about the work people and teams around Phoenix Futures are doing to support families of those struggling with addiction.

In the Supporting Families issue:

• Building Family Links in Trafford• Creativity Recovery in Pentonville• Safeguarding in Birmingham• ADFAM’s Family Voices Competition

Also in this issue:

• Travelling and Training with ECEtt• Phoenix at the Peer Awards and...• Bringing Out The Best in Our Peers

Deborah Mackay - Editor

‘A Time to Talk’ – by Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

As well as our shared reading groups outlined last time, The Reader Organisation will be offering training in our literary learning programmes.

Two of these will equip participants with the skills, knowledge and confidence to work one-to-one in enabling oth-ers to connect with great literature through reading aloud. This expertise could then be put to good work as part of Phoenix Futures’ provision, or in voluntary work in the community.We will also be looking for dedicated people, with a belief in the social value of reading and a passion to share this vision, who want to lead a reading group themselves and can commit to a 12-month voluntary scheme. Vol-unteers will benefit from our innovative Read to Lead training and support programme.

Do look out for these opportunities for staff and service users in the months ahead.Our first groups will soon be underway within the Recovery Abstinence and Young People’s Services in Trafford. Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this month’s poem, or ask any questions, by email.

READER IN RESIDENCE

When a friend calls to me from the road And slows his horse to a meaning walk, I don’t stand still and look around On all the hills I haven’t hoed, And shout from where I am, ‘What is it?’ No, not as there is a time to talk. I thrust my hoe into the mellow ground, Blade-end up and five feet tall, And plod: I go up to the stone wall For a friendly visit.

Tom Youngtomyoung@thereader.org.uk

www.thereader.org.uk

BUILDLING FAMILY LINKS IN TRAFFORD

Our Young People’s Service in Trafford has recently appointed a new Family Outreach Worker. Emma Hunt joins the team after previously working in a family support role within social care. Here she tells Network about her new role and how she’ll be helping Phoenix to support families.

The aim is to reach out to those who need support and are having to cope with the effects which alcohol and substance misuse has on their loved one. As a service we believe that by offering this support to families and loved ones there will be a positive impact for our young people. I believe that working in a holistic approach involving families in the treatment process, will further enhance the positive work being completed by the substance misuse workers.

I am going to be establishing a FLAMES group within the service which will offer peer support within a group setting to people affected by the substance use of some under the age of 25. Not only will this be available to the families and carers of our young people, but also families and carers not known to our service. The hope is that by supporting the parents and carers of young people not yet known to our service, they will be able to speak with their young person and support them into treatment.

I am very excited about my role and the future prospects this could bring for our young people and their families and carers. I am working closely with the Family Worker from the Trafford Adult Services to plan a Family and Carers Celebration Event in the coming months.

The Family Outreach Worker role is new to the service and brings with it lots of opportunities to support the families of our young people. The main aspect of my role will be to deliver intensive support to the families, carers and significant others of our young people initially over a seven week period covering the following topics:

• Health • Caring role • Managing at home

• Time for yourself• How you feel • Finances • Work

Family support workers at Phoenix Future’s HMP Pentonville service held a writing-focused Creative Recovery group on Jubilee Wing at HMP Pentonville. The men were given an introductory exercise to imagine something that they enjoyed or loved – a place, a drug, a feeling, anything that had positive connotations for them. They were then asked to write down what this thing would taste, smell, feel, sound and look like, if they had to describe it to someone else.

This exercise had an inspiring effect upon the men, and some of them shared the ‘riddles’ that they had created, seeing if the group could guess what they were describing by the different sensations they attached to it. Now truly ready to write, the men were given the task of writing on the impact that their drug and alcohol use – or their recovery from drugs and alcohol – had or was having on themselves and their families. Each man came up with a very personal interpretation of this theme, and the memories and experiences that were relayed onto paper were brave, honest and powerful. The focus of the writing also stimulated lots of lovely debate and conversation on the subject of addiction and recovery. At the end of the session anyone who wanted to share their writing with the group was invited to read it out, and this process encouraged lots of identification and positive feedback from the other group members. The finished pieces were displayed as part of the Building Futures 2nd Anniversary event at HMP Pentonville on Tuesday 30th September.

CREATIVE RECOVERY AT PENTONVILLE

Josie Standbrook, HMP Pentonville

SUPPORTING FAMILIES AT FOUNDATION66

When working with their service users our Foundation66 teams are constantly aware of the impact addiction and recovery can have on families and loved ones. I caught up with some of the Foundation66 services to find out how they support families and affected others.

The 5 Step Model at CASS

“During the assessment or during the keywork, if we identify that the significant other of our client needs support we offer them the 5 step model. This is a short term intervention, however we can refer them to a family group that takes place every week. Also we give information of Al-Anon meetings and again, depending on the need, we might refer them to family recovery programme.”

Alexandra Gatzoflia, CASS Team Leader

RBKC North Hub

Our team at the Foundation66 RBKC North Hub take a number of measures to ensure families of those affected by problematic drug and alcohol use are supported. These measures include advising carers and signposting them towards the support they need, referring them to a dedicated care practitioner from Blenheim who provides one-to-one support using the 5 Step model, or referring them to our dedicated family therapy or carer groups at the South Hub.

About the 5 Step Model

ADFAM refers to the 5 Step Model as a way of structuring either a one-off session or series of sessions to support a family member of someone affected by problematic drug or alcohol use.

The 5 Steps are:

The Older People’s Alcohol Service

“In addition to the assistance provided to clients, we also work directly with family members and carers of the substance user. This support can take many forms, including meeting them individually and offering advice and guidance or referrals to other services. With older people it is sometimes incredibly important to have the input of their family members, and for them to be present when visiting the client, for example with patients diagnosed with dementia. It can help alleviate worries the client might have about professionals visiting their home. Family members and carers are kept up to date with the progress their loved one is making, or if there are any barriers to be worked through. Family members and carers are therefore able to gain support for their own feelings and experiences around living with a substance user, and are also fully informed on the care and guidance given to their loved one.” Rebecca Marsh, Older Person’s Team Leader

Step Three Explore coping responses

Step Four Explore social support

Step Five Explore:• further options for help & support• involvement of others in the family• scope for joint working

Step One Looking at how the problem affects family members: Listen, reassure and explore con-cerns

Step Two Provide relevant information about alcohol and drugs but also other issues

SAFEGUARDING IN BIRMINGHAM

Outreach Worker and qualified social worker, Lara Bailey from our Birmingham Community Engagement Outreach service, uses her specialist knowledge to help inform practice and develop safeguarding processes in her service.

What role do you play in supporting families?

Part of our work as outreach workers is to find ‘need to reach communities’ of people at risk of substance misuse and so some of the links we’ve been making around Birmingham have been with TAF. TAF stands for Teams Around the Family and are run by children’s centres in various hubs around the city. I’ve been making links with TAF to make sure they have a referral pathway to Phoenix Futures if they have a family where one or more of the family members have issues with substance misuse. We can then contribute towards that family’s support process.

A lot of professionals attend the TAF meetings; they’re an opportunity seek help from other professionals. For example I might be working with a person struggling with substance misuse but is also having trouble with housing for their family. I could go to a TAF meeting and say ‘this family is struggling with poor housing at the moment’ and then the housing professionals or support workers could take that and work with the family. So it’s a way of bringing professionals together, with the consent of the family, to offer support.

What are the key focus areas when it comes to supporting and protecting families?

In Birmingham there’s been a real push to improve child safeguarding which is where MASH comes in. The MASH is a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub. I’ve been working to promote MASH amongst our team and colleagues. Making sure everyone is aware of MASH, how to contact them, and really creating an open culture of discussing cases and not pushing them to one side but using the team that we’ve got to discuss safeguarding and making sure it’s on everyone’s agenda. It’s making sure nobody feels frightened to discuss a child or an adult they may be concerned about.

Children’s voices often get lost in adult services, especially in adult substance misuse services. So that’s something I’m interested in, bringing the child’s voice to the forum. Something I did recently was put on an experiential training exercise with the team where we looked at the lived experience of a child in a domestic violence situation. It was an opportunity for everyone in the team to see the child where normally they would only see the adult.

How did you become involved in safeguarding?

Safeguarding is something I’ve developed over time. I was coming to the end of my social work degree when I came into the role at Phoenix and I wanted to continue to use and develop the safeguarding skills I’d gained. In a lot of serious case reviews substance misuse has been an issue so we saw an opportunity to develop the area of safeguarding in what we do.

What impact have these safeguarding measures had on the team?

I think we’ve reached a point where we have a really good safeguarding culture. Everybody’s happy to discuss their cases and be open and transparent about their cases.

Phoenix were shortlisted in five categories for the ECEtt programme. These categories were Impact, Innovation, the Overall Award for Excellence, People and Performance, and Staff Development. We came away winning the Staff Development Award and the whole section award for People and Performance. The Overall 2014 Peer Award for Excellence went to the Royal College of General Practitioners for their programme, ‘Managing Dementia in Primary Care’.

About ECEtt

This opportunity provided fantastic learning opportunities to staff, some with no formal qualifications or experience of new ways of working. The opportunity offered staff a mixture of learning experiences from experiencing different cultures, different forms of treatment, attending graduation ceremonies with families, witnessing concerning practices of safe drug using houses and needle exchanges in Poland, to horse therapy in Spain. Some groups of staff had never met each other before, and were mostly from different sectors (prison, residential and community).Staff showed they were brave to take the opportunity, a passion to invest in learning.

Frances Gray, Head of Learning and Development

This month a massive congratulations goes out to all those involved in our ECEtt programme. Phoenix Futures came away with awards for Staff Development and People and Performance at this year’s Peer Awards. Karen Biggs, Frances Gray, Bob Campbell, Nicola Owens from Phoenix and the founder of ECEtt Georges Van Der Straten attended the awards on 22nd September.

This project has provided all partners involved with a broader understanding of alternative practices that have shown to be successful in improving the lives of our service users accessing addiction projects. This opportunity provided fantastic learning opportunities to staff, some with no formal qualifications or experience working in other organisations to go and experience new services, ways of working and cultures. The opportunity offered staff a mixture of learning experiences from experiencing different cultures, different forms of treatment, attending graduation ceremonies with families, witnessing concerning practices of safe using houses and needle exchanges in Poland, to horse therapy in Spain.

The innovation and impact is vast as this project contributes to increasing our skills and knowledge of drug treatment across Europe and enabling us to be a leading provider in the sector. Our involvement in this project displays a keen interest in broadening the learning horizons for our staff in innovative ways. It enabled dynamic learning from all areas of the organisation as participants were from administration, prison, community and residential roles. This involvement has also opened doors for involvement in other European projects and we are currently working with 4 European partners on an online drug prevention training course.

PHOENIX AT THE PEER AWARDS

ECETT ITALIAN TRAVELS

Since 2012 Phoenix has been a partner of the European Companionship in Education, training by travel (ECEtt) programme. Through this partnership we are able to send staff to international locations to share expertise and learn from other organisations around Europe. This month’s update comes from Matt Heaver, Leah Goodrham and Laura Howard who spent two weeks at the Ceis Formazione, the training and development centre in Modena, Italy.

Giorno Uno (Day One)

Following a day of lots of giggles, travelling and Pizza we began our ECEtt experience with Andrea kindly collecting us from our Hotel and taking us to Ceis Formazione which is the base for staff training and developing new treatment programmes within Modena and the surrounding areas. After Andrea introduced us to proper Italian Espressos we sat down to look at the plan for the next two weeks which is filled with lots of exciting opportunities to visit both treatment services and the learning and development departments of Ceis.

During the afternoon we attended a lecture on Psychology at work and motivation. The lecture was delivered in Italian, we did manage to pick up a few words with Andrea kindly translating so we could keep up. Laura was brave and did answer a question in Italian which sparked a debate between the students. We all agreed that despite the language barrier we had enjoyed the lecture and it did spark discussions between ourselves.

To find out more about Matt, Leah and Laura’s ECEtt travels visit their blog: http://ecettitaly.tumblr.com/

We were suprised to learn that the bulk of the students’ study time is on a Friday evening and a Saturday as they all work full time during the week (this is slightly different to our university experiences!)

We had a delicious lunch in the on-site Cafe which is run by Volunteers from the local community and graduates from the treatment services. The Cafe doesn’t serve Alcohol in order to help support the Volunteers and those in recovery. Andrea commented on the fact that the Cafe is unique as they are often unsustainable due to not selling Alcohol.

Final thoughts of the day:

• We was interested to learn that Cocaine is the cheapest drug in this region (Emilia-Romagna) which differs to the UK.

• It was suprising to learn that families do not view loved ones as having an addiction if their drug of choice doesn’t include Heroin regardless of how many other drugs they use and the risks associated with them.

• The main factors for motivation at work as agreed by the students in the lecture were: Direction, Intensity and Consistency

• Never ever ever ask for a Cappucino after breakfast. We were firmly warned by Andrea!

We are looking forward to a day of sight-seeing tomorrow and what the week ahead will bring.

In August this year HMP Pentonville’s psychosocial substance misuse service was awarded APS (Approved Provider Standard) by the Mentoring and Befriending Association for their Peer Mentoring and Peer Support Scheme.

BRINGING OUT THE BEST IN OUR PEERS

The Peer Mentoring and Peer Support Scheme are for all prisoners who present with substance or alcohol use. The scheme aims to help prisoners maintain their recovery, reduce substance and alcohol consumption, reduce isolation and anxiety levels and to ensure that all prisoners know what information and support systems are available to them. The scheme offers one –to-one Peer Mentoring as well as groups delivered by Peer Supporters for prisoners in the detox wing of the prison. Peer Supporters are available throughout the day for prisoners to speak to at any time they need support. They are present from when a prisoner first enters custody in the First Night Centre to prior to release on the wings and throughout the prison.

The work the Peer Supporters have been doing in HMP Pentonville has been phenomenal including mentoring prisoners in recovery, achieving qualifications themselves and helping with the day to day running of the service. Below is an account written by the Interventions Team Manager and Peer Support Scheme Lead, Liam Daniels:

“I am extremely pleased and inspired by the hard work and dedication of the Phoenix Futures Peer Supporters and the work that they achieve. They play a crucial role in the success and development of the service that Building Futures provides at HMP Pentonville and are a great example and testament to the fact that change is possible. We have had Peer Supporters chair SMART Recovery meetings, complete the Mentoring Skills Qualification (an equivalent to a NVQ Level 2 which is nationally recognised), co-facilitate various Phoenix group packages with our staff, be involved in the recruitment process of new Phoenix Futures staff, facilitate inductions for new receptions into the prison and provide feedback at the monthly Drug Strategy meetings just to name a few. For me personally it has been great to see and be a part of the solution in helping individuals to better themselves and build strong foundations for their personal road to recovery”.