Coming clean about best way to help people beat addiction

Ellison Lang’s job is still unusual enough that she finds car insurance companies struggle to identify her chosen career. “I’m a project worker with Addaction Scotland and when I phone for quotes for car insurance my job isn’t listed,” she says “They have everything else you can imagine so it gives you an idea how new this field is.”

It’s an interesting issue, not least because there is a widespread perception that drug support is often staffed by people who have domestic experience with addiction issues.

This is confirmed by research from STRADA (Scottish Training in Drugs and Alcohol) based at the University of Glasgow which shows that while one-third of people coming into their own courses have higher education qualifications, there are still a considerable number of people entering them without any academic qualifications.
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NHS Health Scotland is currently working on an Alcohol and Drugs Workforce Development strategy, which is due for completion soon.

The strategy will map out for the first time the full range of people working in the addiction field, in health, housing, employment, education, criminal justice and social care.

It will look at what is currently in place to train and develop the workforce and try to identify any gaps, while improving communication between workers in different fields.

While personal experience is undoubtedly useful, if not balanced with formal qualifications, there is a danger that such work might appear well-meaning but amateurish’ in a sensitive area.

In contrast, Ellison, 29, approached drug support from the professional angle, having had no experience in her personal life of addiction issues. “I’m the youngest of nine children and my career choices still have my siblings raising their eyebrows,” she says. “My dad’s an architect and my brothers and sisters are involved in IT, joinery and designing, so I’ve no idea where this idea of working in drug support came from.

“While I know there are drugs and alcohol everywhere, I was at university before I knew people who had any problems with it.”

Her current post is with the SMART Recovery project in Ayrshire, which helps people recover from addictive behaviours, through face-to-face meetings and practical support. “We’re here for as long and as often as people need us,” she says. “The best part of the job is that we’re at the positive end of the road – innovating, motivating, helping people towards work, education and training. We constantly move them on to better things and that’s very satisfying.

“The hardest part of the job is the lack of support from other bodies, the inability to work together more cohesively and utilise our collective strengths.”

Her sentiments are echoed by Biba Brand, of the Scottish Drugs Forum Addiction Worker Training Project, which won a Herald Society award for best practice last November. Brand acknowledges that projects like this, which takes former addicts and trains them to be workers with other drug users, can look risky. But she says the dangers of possible regression to addiction for those working in the field are being addressed.

“AWTP has had a formal evaluation which was very positive about its overall outcome – to date around 76% of those who have entered it have gone on to move into employment since its launch in 2004,” she says. “Of the 61 trainees undergoing the course since its launch, only two are definitely known to have relapsed during the year’s training period.

“Studies by the UK Drug Policy Commission have shown that once in work, recovering problem drug users have been found to be good employees.”

In fact, at a recent Scottish Government event to highlight successful recovery from addiction, an AWTP trainee told the Herald that seeing the effects of drugs on clients could harden the resolve of recovered workers.

Joy Barlow, head of STRADA believes that clear professional development is still lacking in this area, however. “There are two elements to be addressed here – identifying a clear starting point and planning effective training by looking at the service we want.

“The problem for many people who want to work in the field is finding that basic first rung on the ladder; at each point that you can enter the system there should be drugs and alcohol training available, rather than just general social care training.

“For example, undergraduates completing a degree in social work can anticipate being introduced into a social landscape where those issues play a very large part in their clients’ lives, yet may have had little information on these specifics in their course.

“People come into the field from a huge range of professions and their training should take that into account; STRADA is aiming to raise confidence, help people make a good career choice, support skill development and target appropriate training.”

She is also aware of how qualifications are viewed by workers in the field, with personal experience seen as the most basic qualification. “Vocational courses are considered a step up from that, followed by academic qualifications – degrees, PG courses and doctorates” she says. “Academic qualifications are seen as vastly superior but not particularly attainable. We would like to see a stronger link between vocational and academic qualifications.”