Double Impact Services was established in 1998 with the mission of supporting people to successfully recover from drug and/ or alcohol dependence and to (re)integrate back into society. Its beneficiaries are vulnerable people experiencing significant social exclusion and isolation due to a wide range of additional factors including poverty, homelessness, poor education, long-term unemployment and histories of offending.
Its geographical focus is East Midlands with services currently in Nottingham/shire and Lincoln/shire. Double Impact is a user-led organisation that promotes peer support and peer mentoring, and supports service-users to access and develop mutual aid networks (such as Alcoholics Anonymous) and community resources. Its services are embedded in the community, which allows for efficient use of existing resources in each area and fosters a sense of ownership and belonging in those who use them. In 2016-17, Double Impact supported 960 service-users to recover from addiction.
Recovering from dependence on drugs or alcohol is a long term process and often requires rebuilding a life from scratch. Without the right support people return to drinking or using and the cycle of devastation starts again. The costs of this to the individual, to their loved ones and to the wider community are immense. Double Impact provides the support for individuals to break this cycle and establish a lasting recovery from addiction.
Services and activities:
Services and activities are built around our ambition for, and belief in the ability of people to sustain recovery from addiction and to reintegrate fully into their community. Since its early days, the organisation has based its support around education, employment and peer support, and has successfully delivered many specialist programmes. This learning has evolved into our current Recovery Academy Model, first commissioned in 2014. We also provide safe spaces for people to socialise, support each other and rebuild their social networks.
Social impact:
Wherever possible we embed employment opportunities for beneficiaries into our services, creating practical pathways out of dependence into independence. Our services have been independently evaluated as creating between £4 and £7 in savings to society for every £1 invested in us. This wider social impact of an individual’s recovery, as well as the personal transformation experienced by the individual, is evident in Gemma’s account of her recent journey with Double Impact:
“I went on to become a peer mentor which was amazing and this made me feel so good about myself. I am now a paid member of staff hear at Double Impact as a recovery connector and I volunteer at a residential rehab. I continue with my education and I am currently nearing an end on my level 3 health and social care which is specialised with substance misuse. I have both my children living back with me and I have remained crime free and out of the criminal justice system since, life’s currently good for me and I am enjoying my journey. I would not be here today and dread to think where I would be without being given the opportunities I have through Double Impact. To them I am truly grateful of the support and opportunities they have given me.”
We also run a social enterprise, Cafe Sobar, (www.sobar-nottingham.co.uk), which is an independent high street cafe and alcohol free venue,providing our service users, their friends and families and diverse communities somewhere safe to socialise without the pressure of alcohol.
