Back to work
Just
Getting a job
can be one of
the key drivers
of recovery,
but not
everyone is
ready at the same time.
Hélène Begg explains how
the IPS model has helped
Cranstoun’s Brighton-based
Pavilions service to rethink
its approach to employment
support
T
he 2017 drug strategy clearly stated that
services should aim to support clients
with their employment needs. As we are
all painfully aware, however, financial
constraints leave us wondering how we
can stretch our budgets and our teams to
tackle this national issue.
As a result of a budget reduction early on in our
Brighton and Hove five-year contract, Cranstoun had to
decide whether we could keep a full-time employment,
training and education (ETE) coordinator in post. We
needed to work hard on retaining a skilled, experienced
and happy workforce capable of managing complex
caseloads, and reducing the number of recovery
workers was definitely not an option.
So here we were in 2017 reducing the full-time ETE
post to a part-time role, even though we work with
2,500 people in treatment over the course of a year. It is
fair to say that we knew it would be difficult to achieve
our ETE service aims in those circumstances. I can only
assume that most services in the country have had to
make similar decisions over the past few years.
Thankfully, in 2016, Dame Carol Black’s report An
independent review into the impact on employment
outcomes of drug or alcohol addiction, and obesity was
released with some important findings for our sector.
Among other suggestions, she recommended that the
12 | drinkanddrugsnews | October 2019
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