Mentoring programme helps tackle substance misuse
CRI has worked closely with East Sussex County Council’s Safer Communities Team and Brighton & Hove DAAT to develop a new peer mentoring programme. Volunteer mentors are supporting “recovering” drug-users through the challenges they face whilst accessing treatment.
Mentors complete a thorough 12-week accredited training course which equips them with the knowledge and skills to support their clients. Through one to one weekly sessions they offer information and advice about existing services, provide a listening ear, and can empathise with the difficulties being faced by clients. Both parties set targets which will help the mentee to achieve their overall goal. The positive role model they provide also inspires mentees, instilling the confidence that they too can achieve successful re-integration into society in much the same way as their mentor.
David, an ex service user, has just been matched with his first client. “When I first left treatment I really needed some support and structure in my life. I felt that I learned best from people who were a bit further along in their recovery. I really needed someone to come and tell me what was out there, what I could do.” Importantly David feels that becoming a mentor has enabled him to give something back to the service that supported him through his difficult times.
As people who have grappled with and overcome a drug addiction, mentors can offer clients something that a worker cannot provide. “I understand and know how hard addiction is,” says David. “It took me twelve times to finally achieve abstinence,” he says, “but we give them [mentees] encouragement by reminding them how far they have come - what they have already achieved, which can raise their confidence.”
Joe became a mentor after twenty years of addiction. “With the support of Eastbourne drug services I finally broke free and the relief that I felt was so overwhelming that I really wanted to help others to break free,” he said. “By becoming a mentor I knew I would be able to do that.”
Joe remembers that during his days of trying to overcome addiction he saw service providers as a hindrance. His ability to see things from the point of view of a user and a service provider enables him to help his clients with this misconception. “It is important for users to see service providers for what they are, that they are there to help and that these are generous people who have dedicated their whole life to helping others,” he says.
The mentoring programme has helped Joe and David to make the cross over from service user to service provider. They both now hope to pursue a career in support services. The training they completed to become a mentor has enabled them to enrol for the City and Guilds Community Justice Progression Award, which will aid them in becoming substance misuse workers.
“The programme works on two levels: primarily to provide a mentoring service to Eastbourne’s service users and, secondly, through providing pastoral and practical support and Open College Network accredited Mentoring Training, we hope to help mentors through the transition from service user to service provider, offering a real opportunity into employment, not just in drug services but in a variety of social care settings. In effect, we are growing and cultivating a future work force,” says Stewart Qureshi, Senior Project Worker and Peer Mentor Coordinator with CRI, Eastbourne. “It’s important to recognise the invaluable support people have given to the programme. The DAAT’s Strategy and Partnership officer, Health Development and CRI staff and volunteers have all had a role with the development of the programme,” added Stewart.
David speaks about how he has benefited from the two programmes: “Doing the mentoring and now working towards the Progression Award has built my self esteem. It has given me faith in myself that I am capable of achieving things.”
Mentors work with their clients for up to eight months helping them to break free from damaging patterns of behaviour. The whole process is self-perpetuating, with some mentees now aspiring to become mentors.
Mentoring is a big commitment, and is not for everyone. “We have to be non-judgemental, and be understanding but at the same time very straight with our clients” says David.
When Joe was receiving treatment for his addiction he found it hard to believe in himself, and thinks that a mentor could have helped him through his difficult times. “If I had seen someone face to face who could truly relate to what I had experienced it would have helped,” he says.
The chaotic nature of substance misuse means that not everyone matched with a mentor will go on to be drug free this time round. “People don’t just come in and get cured,” said David. “But the work people do with their mentor might just plant a seed in their mind that they don’t have to go back to the way things were before. A lot of the users have either forgotten or never known what life is like on the other side,” he said.
The mentoring programme has proved to be very popular and worthwhile, continually there is a list of clients using CRI’s services who are interested in being matched with a mentor.
“All of the individuals involved have put in a great deal of work and have shown commitment and dedication to the project. peer mentors, and peer advocates, are a very effective way of making drug services more responsive to the needs of the client group. As well as providing an effective face-to-face service, peer mentors will be an invaluable resource, as service user consultants, in reviewing current services and planning future developments. We hope to be able to work with other agencies, both statutory and voluntary, to extend this service across Eastbourne, Wealden and Lewes,” says Jim Horton, CRI Eastbourne Services Manager.
“Drugs are a real problem in society,” says Joe. “But now we, the people who used to be part of that problem, are coming forward and helping to do something about it.”
“When people are in services their perception of society is twisted. We can help them see that we live in a world where people are trying to help. They can be helped if they allow themselves to be.”
Mentoring is just one of a series of initiatives being overseen by the Safer Communities Team in order to deliver the key aim of helping local people to feel safer.
Contacts
For more information about mentoring or advocacy for substance misuse services contact Matt Taylor on 01273 645067 or email: mtaylor@crinet.co.uk
