A message from our Communications Lead, Georgia P
2022 was off to a flying start with our service welcoming our partners, councillors and Commissioners to an open event for our inpatient detox unit, Park House, and our new Health and Wellbeing Hub in the city centre. A perfect way to showcase our new project teams and the variety of treatment options available in Birmingham.
We want to boost our outrech efforts with the local community. We know from feedback that we must promote our services in GP surgeries and pharmacies. We are also developing our Birmingham service website and referral forms, to make finding the information you need as easy as possible. With the support of student placements from Aston University, we have been able to boost our social media platforms to keep people informed about service changes and positive news. Give us a follow on our social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Finally, we are pleased to announce that our Veteran’s Group is part of the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, United by 2022. We look forward to getting involved with community projects and welcoming new members from our service into the group for personalised peer-led support.
Rehab or detox
We help people detoxify themselves, with assistance, from the substance(s) that are affecting them, and help them gain the skills, knowledge and confidence to live their lives to the full, free from these substances.
We offer options designed around that person with them at the heart of the process. The main pathways available are:
- A community detox’ is where someone can attend one of our Hubs for 2-weeks. This is a monitored detox’ available for those who have some home support and cannot commit to an “in-patient” style detox. We provide pre-detox sessions and follow up sessions with our Programmes team afterwards.
- A residential detox’ programme is offered via the West Midlands Framework or via referral to Park House.
- A residential detox’ can be followed by an extended programme of in-patient rehabilitation with providers being located outside of the Birmingham area.
We have two dedicated detox and rehab workers to help every step of the way:
Park House Open Event
Earlier this year, we invited close partners, staff, and Birmingham City Council Commissioners along to an open event at Park House, our inpatient detox unit. After a décor refresh, the induction of new staff, and the launch of the West Midlands Framework, it was a perfect time to highlight our fantastic detox provisions. People accessing treatment with us can be referred to Park House for a 2-week medical detox. Our staff offers group sessions, peer-led support, and continuous medical care to ensure people have a safe and comfortable experience.
Here's what our new services manager Cortney had to say about the open event and the future of Park House.
"Birmingham is really lucky to have such a unique service that offers person-centered support for people experiencing substance misuse. We were pleased with the interest in Park House and happy to hear that it is an intrinsic part of health services in Birmingham. It was great to regroup with our partners, and strengthen our group and peer-led provisions"
Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Update from Jack
We’ve started collecting feedback about accessing our service from marginalised communities within Birmingham, and how culture impacts recovery. With 100 responses from the initial questionnaire, we’re now working with a group of people who use our service, to take these experiences and develop a service that removes barriers to access.
We have re-launched our LGBT+ group to increase our inclusivity within our Throughcare offer. We also welcomed staff to share their stories and experiences in recognition of LGBT+ History month, to start important conversations around equality. We partnered up with Birmingham LGBT to provide Trans Awareness training for all our staff, just ahead of Trans Day of Visibility. Staff will now be more confident in tailoring support when a trans person enters our service or seeks advice around substance misuse. We have new staff groups to help provide peer support to our Trans and non-binary staff, those experiencing menopause, and those who have disabilities.
For International Women's Day, our Women and Families team held a brilliant creative session themed around creating women of the future. We also asked our senior leadership team to take part in The Big Promise, a pledge to make our service Anti-Racist, as part of Race Equality Week.
We’re hiring
We are recruiting a variety of roles to help support our Birmingham service and the people who access treatment with us. We have vacancies for specialty doctors, inpatient detox nurses, clinical psychiatrists, and non-medical prescribers.
We also have consultant positions in Nottinghamshire, Dudley, Coventry, and Warwickshire. Did you know our Doctor, Non-medical prescriber, and consultant psychiatrist positions are mainly 9-5 working hours with little to no overtime required?
You can see all our organisation’s opportunities by clicking here. We would love you to share this with your colleagues and networks.
Pockets of positivity for our partners
We are incredibly proud of our partners and the bespoke sessions they provide people accessing support via our Throughcare programme. Throughcare offers a large variety of group sessions to support anxiety, motivation, and general recovery in person and across digital spaces.
Well done to KIKIT and Intuitive Thinking Skills for these amazing pieces of feedback via Care Opinion.
I have been working with Kikit for around 3 months. I completed the diversity in recovery program where I learned a lot of things about myself.
I still come to the support groups where I made good honest friends and we always do exciting and fun things.
Overall very good service. They get along with everyone and are very friendly. They are very liked in their area and help people in any way they can.
I couldn’t recommend getting support from places like Change Grow Live enough."
- Care Opinion review from a Throughcare participant
I was first introduced to Intuitive Recovery through Change Grow Live. My key worker told me about their course and thought they would help me. THEY DID! Since Intuitive Recovery, I have now also done Skills Tu Life and Enough’s Enough. By learning how the brain works and identifying my addictive desires I can stop my thoughts from running wild. I also found the SWOT Analysis that was written about me by a 3rd party was a real eye-opener in seeing how others perceive me. After sitting Intuitive Thinking Skills courses I am feeling much more positive in general. I have a newborn to add to my family and I am currently 12 weeks drug-free.
- Care Opinion review from a Throughcare participant
Care Opinion is a public feedback forum for health and social care organisations.
If you, or know someone who has been through our services and would like to leave us a review, please go to Care Opinion to get started. We reply to every review and action improvement with our senior leadership team.