Home care provider to support drug and alcohol addiction
MELBOURNE: A home care provider is to start servicing drug and alcohol addiction clients in their own homes.
Right at Home Central London has expanded its home care services to support drug and alcohol addiction and is thought to be the first home care provider in the UK to do so.
The new Addiction Recovery Support Service has been created to provide emotional and practical support for clients to rebuild their lives after they have been discharged from rehab centres.
This new initiative was developed by Right at Home Central London managing director Bryan McMorrine who wanted to bring affordable in-home support for addicts in recovery.
Mr McMorrine said: “It was something that I have been toying with for a long time. Because our office is in Soho, we see people that have ended up on our streets with drugs and alcohol problems.
“In London, people are a lot more open to talking about their problems. I see these people and I see the problems they have when I’m walking home from work. I’ve known people who have had these problems as well and it’s just about getting the right support.
“Once people leave the detox or treatment centres and are at home, there is no one is checking up on them to see how they can help.
“Most of my work comes from the private hospital discharge and we have recently hired an Arabic team as we do a lot of work with the Muslim community because of their religion, they are not going to tell anyone about an alcohol problem.
“We’ve developed bespoke training including mental health, so they are aware of suicide awareness, depression and anxiety. We can be there to provide extra practical or emotional support for people who attend addiction groups during key times when they’re not in meetings,” says Mr McMorrine.
His idea turned into a new venture when Mr McMorrine had a chance meeting with Matt Thomas who runs a charity for addiction. They started discussing the growing drug and alcohol problem. Mr Thomas started working with Right at Home in September as a consultant helping create training and marketing material for the team.
Mr McMorrine said: “It is a specialist service that we are offering and at the moment, we are the only regulated business that is offering this, and we are using the same standards that we are using across our other services that are regulated.”
The Addiction Recovery Support Service currently has a team of five people all of which have a background in supporting addicts. “I am hoping this will go to the size of the care business. We have over 50 on the care side just now so I’m hoping this will grow to a similar size.”
“This service is for people who have already safely detoxed from drugs or alcohol and are looking for support. In the first two weeks we have had six enquiries.”
The Addiction Recovery Support Service can help with supporting clients to live a healthy lifestyle including nutrition and exercise, helping clients to achieve long-term goals such as returning to work or education and working to recognise and avoid triggers of a potential relapse.
“The market appears to lack affordable in-home support for addicts in recovery. We are into the side of supporting people once they have actually stopped to help them on the long-term recovery.
“[One person] came home from rehab and he was at a complete loss as he did not have his life skills anymore. He got very anxious about going to the supermarket and hadn’t cleaned his flat for a long time. I thought this is something that we could easily do with the right team in place.
“Some people might need help Monday to Friday because their partner is at work while other people may need help at the weekend because they have too much time on their hands and they may become tempted.”
Right at Home will be charging their clients a competitive and fair price. “From the research I have done, there seems to be a lot of personal recovery coaches in London who are self-employed and charging in the region of £100 per hour which I think is ridiculous. We’re bringing it in at around a third of that.”
Right at Home Central London has also become the first organisation in the UK to achieve the Pride in Care quality standard for providing quality care and support to LGBTQ+ people over the age of 50. The agency believes it is vital to educate their team on LGBT+ history, issues and tolerance so the clients do not feel lonely and build friendships.
The business has also recently launched a Dementia Friendly Cleaning service in response to demand from clients for a high-quality cleaning service where all staff are fully dementia trained.
