| High profile jobs for ex-drug users |
| Written by Mark Poingdestre, Service Manager, Portsmouth CDA | |
| Monday, 18 February 2008 | |
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This article attempts to bring you up to speed about two exciting services that we’re running in Portsmouth that some of you might be interested in – ‘Engage’ and ‘Branching Out’. These are a volunteer coordination project and evening support group that work together to place ex-drug and alcohol users in voluntary work placements and help them with all things education, training and employment. Our ‘Engage’ workers, Jo Bushell & Emma Loveridge take referrals from all and sundry but especially our modular day program. They take quite a while to assess the volunteer and encourage them to build up or maintain a support network within local services and make links with any other involved workers. They also spend some time looking at the person’s skills and abilities and where they might best be used, focusing for most new volunteers on non-challenging placements which might become a stepping stone to other more career orientated work. People often start in conservation, warehousing or retail and then progress into life guarding, administration and various aspects of people work. For each volunteer it’s a bit different with regard to what their ambitions and capabilities are, but with lots of people we have to work quite hard to focus them away from going straight into substance misuse work. Our experience is that volunteers who do some other area of people work first, end up with a broader view of their own value and capabilities as a worker by taking this route. We have over 30 placement options that are frequently added to but could probably do with more links with the business sector. Providers are generally open to taking volunteers because our support is ongoing unlike many mainstream volunteer schemes. Unsurprisingly, our successes lead providers to become keener to take our people and many of our ‘Engage’ volunteers have ended up with paid positions with provider organisations, or elsewhere, as a result of CV building and networking through volunteering. The evening support group, ‘Branching Out’ works really well alongside ‘Engage’ people come in recommended by friends and refer themselves, Volunteers pop in and provide support and encouragement to up and coming group members and catch up with the staff. It’s great for those working and studying office hours because their support system doesn’t have to stop the minute they start work. We have regular clinics from ‘Nextstep’ learning and work advice and Jobcentre Plus, who do benefits assessments to help people work their way through the minefield of housing benefit, incapacity and jobseekers. We stress that the group is for people who are thinking about getting into employment or education and never put pressure on people to do it. The service works so well with little resources because there are some good services locally and an excellent NA/AA network that support the volunteers. Crucially, ‘Engage’ and ‘Branching Out’ are based with our structured day program that provides people with a vibrant drug free space, which they can use as their support need changes. Even though I’m quite an optimistic person with a strong belief in the potential in people with drug and alcohol problems to achieve great things, I’ve been really surprised at just how many people do well with the support of the service and how many of them have ended up employed through the scheme. Some of our people have ended up in trusted positions in high profile organisations. |
| The prospect of a service specifically designed to meet the needs of women in Oxfordshire has been the subject of much discussion and planning for a number of years. The service as it appears today is the result of in-depth research and user consultation over a three year period. This process helped to shape the specifications for a new service. | |
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