Alcohol Support
Community Links Alcohol Support Service
This service supports people with alcohol problems to build their independence.
Principles
The service helps with the issues a person may be facing: chaotic lifestyle; no stable accommodation; social exclusion in terms of family, friends, employment, income; poor physical and mental health.
- A needs-led service which delivers the right support to the people most vulnerable because of problematic alcohol use.
- A positive approach which promotes independence and maximises the chances for the person to move out of harmful patterns or cycles into a life which is more socially included and where there is less harm to themselves and others.
- A high quality, strategically planned, cost effective service which fits with existing care services and which helps to build positive pathways for people with problematic alcohol use, identifies and supports people earlier; and reduces the need for acute, long-term or crisis care.
We work across the tiers of MoCAM (Models of Care for Alcohol Misuse). MoCAM provides best practice guidance as part of the Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy. This service operates largely at the lowest tiers, integrating with specialist services. Our service is part of an Alcohol Treatment Pathway.
Engagement and assessment
Following referral, the support worker makes contact with the client and begins to engage. The assessment starts immediately. The support worker uses an assessment framework which looks at the range of needs identified by the client which will be much broader than the problematic alcohol use: housing, debt, benefits, family, social, employment and training, risk, physical and mental health. The support worker understands the models of hazardous, harmful and dependent drinkers. Continues to liaise with other agencies including the referrer, with the client at the centre of the support.
Client Support
Support is structured around a plan which the client and worker have collaboratively developed and agreed in the assessment phase. This could include:
- Help with benefits, debts and budgeting – accompanying the client to the benefits office, help with negotiating with creditors and sticking to repayments
- Help with accommodation: tenancy problems, neighbour conflicts, liaison with housing offices and ASB unit
- Access to other services, eg GP
- Help with physical and mental health, eg diet, counselling, support groups
- Support to build connections with social network and family
- Support interventions include:
- Harm reduction
- Motivational interviewing
- Cognitive-behavioural coping skills
- Psycho-social interventions
- Signpost to other specialist services and
- Assertive and sustained approach
Short term support
Clients whose drinking is at the hazardous level may be in jobs, and/or with families, and their drinking is becoming out of hand. A source of referral could be GP, whose patient says “my wife’s complaining” or “I’m drinking earlier in the morning to stop feeling ill”. There is scope for brief interventions, for example providing information, discussing alcohol use and how to reduce it. This is early intervention in problematic alcohol use. Referral sources include A&E, GPs, police, self-referral.
Team
The Community Links Alcohol Support Service is made up of four Support Workers (three full-time, one half-time) and one Manager.
Contact
For more information, or to make a referral, please contact:
Community Links Alcohol Support Service, Unit 38, Batley Business Park, Technology Drive, Batley WF17 6ER
Telephone: 01484 500100; fax: 01924 422012
e-mail: class@commlinks.co.uk
Manager – Andrea Whitney
