Television star to celebrate Warwickshire drug and alcohol success
Workers and service users celebrate the success of a Warwickshire service to reduce drug and alcohol misuse, this week.
A team of Peer Mentors will be celebrated for their acheivements on Friday 22 October.They will receive certificate awards to mark their success in completing a training programme which enables them to provide support to people who have gone through inpatient treatment at Woodleigh Beeches, Warwick .
So far, 10 Peer Mentors have been trained and supported by user group Voices 4 Choices, and these mentors now provide a six-week programme of support to people going through similar experiences to theirs.
Sara Gorton, manages the Service for Voices 4 Choices, she said: “The hard work really starts when someone leaves Woodleigh. If you want to stay clean and/or sober, you have to change almost everything about yourself. Guidance and support from someone who is further down the road of recovery can be invaluable in helping someone to turn their life around.”
Woodleigh Beeches is run by Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust, who provide mental health, learning disability and substance misuse services across Coventry and Warwickshire.
Said their director of operations, Nigel Barton: “We are very grateful for Dominic’s support. The Peer Mentoring Service is a very important development for this service, and is helping to make sure that Woodleigh Beeches provides a full range of services to its users.”
Warwickshire County Council run the county’s Drug and Alcohol services, which consist of community teams around the county which work alongside NHS and other services.
Warwickshire’s Drug and Alcohol Action Team Manager Kit Leck said: "I congratulate all the newly qualified peer mentors who will be working with people helping them to tackle substance misuse problems.
“We recognise how important peer mentoring can be as a complement to treatment and the expansion of this area of support from Voices 4 Choices is welcomed.
“Users frequently see the advice of peer mentors as more credible than other professionals as these are people who can empathise with their circumstances and know what they have been through, so we are optimistic that even more people will be able to engage effectively with treatment programmes."