The views and opinions expressed below do not reflect the views of the NCCDP.

Greenwich DAAT - Early Interventions

History of the organisation        

Date it was established:

April 2006

Statutory or voluntary?

Statutory (funded through Greenwich DAAT)

Why was it established?

Steve Henfrey was ‘seconded’ from the Connexions service into Greenwich DAAT as the Early Interventions Coordinator. As they are a commissioning body, they cannot employ him as such, so  he remained on the Connexions payroll, and was nominally seconded to Greenwich CAMHs for convenience sake.

Demand for the service has steadily increased. The DAAT have responded to this increase by financing 1 full-time post, and six sessional posts (20 hours per month). This Early Interventions Team has therefore existed since April 2006 in its current format.

What are your aims?

We have a remit to deliver tier 1 & 2 substance misuse services to young people between the ages of 13 and 19 living, studying, and/or working in the London borough of Greenwich.

How has the organisation developed?     

We deliver detached and outreach sessions, and drugs awareness sessions in local schools, colleges, and youth clubs throughout the borough; facilitate community peer education programmes; facilitate music workshops using peer educators; produce a bimonthly magazine; ensure smooth referral pathways to local tier 3 services where appropriate. We also train and support fellow professionals to deliver drugs education to their service users.   

Types of projects undertaken and associated activities

Who is the project for?

Young people living, working and/or studying in Greenwich. ‘Vulnerable’ young people are a priority :– young people from black and minority ethnic communities,  looked after children, teenage parents, those not in education, employment or training, truants, young offenders, excludees etc.

How are people referred?

Open access

What kind of activities are available?             

Peer education programmes, drugs awareness programmes/sessions, detached work, diversionary activities (music workshops/magazine), provision of information about employment and  training opportunities,training for fellow service providers, specialist support for fellow service providers.

How often do people attend? 

Office hours 8-6pm Monday – Friday Open Access
Drop-in  Mondays 11-2pm
Tuesdays 3-6pm
Wednesdays 3-6pm
No appointment needed
Music – Every Tuesday 4-6pm

How do you design your interventions (with reference to the evidence base?)

This is a solution-focused project. We therefore consult with clients and potential clients as to what they believe would need to happen for them to feel that our intervention(s) were effective and useful, including the identification of specific and measurable outcomes.

We evaluate each session, and discuss the learning points as a team. We also have a structure which enables us to operate as a reflecting team when evaluating specific interventions and dynamics.

The Early Interventions Team is a sub-section of the Greenwich Virtual Team for Substance Misuse, and such, we benefit from being able to refer clients, and their family/carers into a range of tier 3 services – counselling, prescriptions, acupuncture, family therapy, psychotherapy.


Challenges

What challenges have you faced?

The biggest challenge is impressing on partner agencies the need, as we see it, to ensure a degree of sustainability to any of the work we do. For instance, increased awareness results in a proportionate increase in demand for support. All too often we receive requests for one-off drugs awareness sessions (especially from schools and colleges) with an apparent end-game of ticking the drugs ed. box, and moving on..

How have you overcome these challenges?

We try to encourage schools, colleges, and youth clubs to consider policy development as a possible outcome of any series of drugs education sessions we deliver. This puts an onus on the host agency to take a degree of responsibility. We also suggest that at least one member of staff should be named as a gate-keeper so that their clients with substance misuse related issues can access them in the first instance. We provide support for those named workers in the form of training, the provision of age appropriate resources, and even supervision.

How do you think drug prevention will develop in the future?

That would depend on future governments, and how they choose to address the range of problems and issues that substance misuse generates.

My fear is that as things appear to spiral out of control (increased use et al) that policy might become more punitive, not least given the massive cuts in NHS budgets, which have meant that a lot of the health promotion initiatives have suffered.

What is clear is that drug use per se is becoming an increasingly acceptable practice and we need to acknowledge that this trend, is continually exacerbated by the proliferation of a whole host of man-made designer drugs issuing forth from innumerable make-shift laboratories all over the Europe and the United States .

Any other comments?

None.