Anonymous, Smart Recovery and Essex Recovery Foundation. By building support networks we hope that, when the time is right, individuals feel comfortable exiting treatment, knowing they’ re settled with a familiar recovery community.

opportunity to engage and to stay away from the wrong people.’

SEXUAL HEALTH Partnership working is an integral part of the Beyond the Box project, and we use our partners to enhance psychosocial support. Essex Sexual Health Service, commissioned by Essex County Council and delivered by Provide Community, have offered their services for our SOS bus – creating a mobile clinic onsite to offer sexual health testing, advice, and

support. This has proved popular among the tenants who would otherwise put off such vital tests.

Open Road has also registered Beyond the Box as a project partner of Essex Sexual Health Service’ s new Umbrella Project, which is aimed at supporting sex workers. This means that we can have care packages available for sex workers at Beyond the Box and can fast-track them into testing and support at the local clinic. Running this service as a drop-in suits the tenants well, as committing to a scheduled appointment can be challenging for those struggling with mental health or addiction.

DIGITAL INCLUSION Open Road has also been able to coordinate a two-day digital inclusion course at Beyond the Box with We Are Digital. Tenants are taught on a tablet which they get to take away and keep once they have completed the course, which includes things like creating

Above left: Open Road’ s‘ SOS bus’ parks up at Beyond the Box once a month to offer a mobile drop-in service. Left: The hub offers access to whatever support is needed. Top right: Empty student accommodation offers safe temporary housing

an email address, writing a CV and searching for jobs. The course complements Open Road’ s Individual Placement and Support( IPS) employment service perfectly, as tenants can be referred to work with an employment specialist who will come to Beyond the Box to provide support. Employment specialists look at CVs, help tenants to make applications, practise interview skills and get them set up with anything else they need, such as a DBS.

We’ ve also been able to liaise with a community mental health team to look at increasing engagement and outcomes for dual diagnosis clients living at Beyond the Box who were consistently missing appointments with services. The feedback from multi-disciplinary meetings was that the service able to engage with the tenant the most was Open Road – specifically the worker placed in Beyond the Box. As a result, it was decided that multi-agency meetings could be held at Beyond the Box to ensure that the client

has another opportunity to attend appointments such as medication reviews, giving them the best chance of stability and progress.

REMOTE AREAS For many of our opiate clients, coming into the Open Road centre in the middle of Colchester means risking bumping into people they have history with or want to avoid. For this reason, we’ re continuously looking at introducing appropriate clinics for our clients and have a few up and running in more remote areas for clients who would find it difficult to travel to us, or for specific vulnerable groups of people.

We’ re continuously looking at ways to improve and progress the service we offer at Beyond the Box, and are now hoping to set up

a lot of people are in the same boat.’

our own clinic. This would be for any tenants who are receiving opiate substitution therapy via our clinical partners Essex STaRS – the appointments would include drug testing, physical health checks and prescribing, with a recovery worker present for psychosocial support. The aim would be to improve ease of access to treatment and prevent clients from falling off their prescription or missing appointments.

Ellie Bland is a University of Essex substance misuse worker and Beyond the Box link worker