Engaging vulnerable groups in substance use treatment: DAWS Plus programme

In Westminster Turning Point have a well-established assertive outreach programme which prioritises engaging with individuals which services often fail to reach, who need extra support to get to a position where they can access structured treatment- often due to them having low recovery capital and complex social problems such as rough sleepers, and people with substance use and mental health issues. We call this project ‘DAWS Plus’.

Westminster City Council is running a system change project supported by a Changing Futures Grant to pilot excellence in the implementation of Integrated Care in one Local Authority ward in the City. Changing Futures is a three year programme funded as a joint initiative by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and The National Lottery Community Fund.

The key aim of the new service is to ‘meet people where they are’, providing tailored support in the community, recognising that not everybody will be able to make the journey to a hub. A key issue locally has been the high proportion drug related deaths of individuals not known to treatment services.

Turning Point have provided to this project an assertive outreach worker for 2 days a week whose role is to work within the Integrated Care System to identify and engage drug and alcohol users from within that system (as opposed to seeking to source referrals from the ICS). Hence to engage individuals who traditionally do not even become known to drug and alcohol services.

Central to this approach is a mapping process for our worker to have a detailed knowledge not just of the best ways to encounter drug and alcohol users in the ward – such as where street drinkers gather or via key partners- but also to take an asset based approach using the concept of a ’15 minute neighbourhood’ to idenitfy local community assets that can meet someone’s needs. This new approach seeks to engage and support people in the community using many of the resources with which are available (for example education, training and employment opportunities, recovery social activities, leisure activities, social prescribing etc).