ESCAPE Family Support is a well-established community led service and registered charity (1063500) that provides support services to families, carers and children of substance users through our Family Team and volunteering, peer mentoring and befriending opportunities through our dedicated Peer, Volunteer and Training Projects within the county of Northumberland.
ESCAPE’s Family Team provides the only specialist provision for carers, kinship carers, and families of substance users and supports family members bereaved by substance misuse. We also work with children and young people affected by parental substance misuse within family settings where there are risks of “hidden harm” by raising awareness of risks to children and young people and increasing protective factors through training and therapeutic interventions.
The services and interventions provided by our Family Team are aimed at addressing and improving the devastating impact that substance misuse can have on the family and carers. Adfam in “We Count Too” identified the following four key areas: Fear and loss of control; Anger and betrayal; Guilt and responsibility; Shame and isolation.
Carers and families have distinctly different needs and requirements for support than the person that they are providing support to. Our beneficiaries have wide ranging problems including physical and psychological health impacts, Velleman (2002) suggest that “every substance misuser will negatively affect at least two close family members’ to the extent that they will require primary healthcare service”. A high percentage of beneficiaries we work with experience mental health issues and or poor physical health.
Additional negative impacts include damaged or difficult family relationships, harm resulting from domestic or sexual violence; social isolation; reduced quality of life; financial hardship and threat to livelihood/employment (paying loved one's debts, barriers to employment or coping in employment) or being victims of acquisitive crime. Complex caring responsibilities for children of substance users (including kinship carers of children subject to safeguarding arrangements) and problems with hidden harm in family settings, where children are negatively impacted by chaotic behaviours.
We offer a range of proven interventions that take a positive approach to the whole person, often addressing multiple issues; we aim to create enduring and sustainable positive changes for people, their circumstances and the wider community.
The majority of our work is delivered from our main building in Ashington which is in the Wansbeck District of South.East Northumberland, as well as from centers in Blyth, Prudhoe and Hexham. We worked with 542 beneficiaries during 2019/20, including 96 children, whose lives have been negatively impacted by a family members substance use.
The work of our Family Team is aligned with Adfam's 'We Count Too: Good Practice Guide and Quality Standards for work with family members affected by someone else’s drug use’ (Adfam, 2009). We deliver most services recommended in this “Good Practice Menu of Services” including: 24/7 telephone helpline and crisis support; educational information; one-to-one support; counselling; complementary therapies; support groups; respite breaks; personal learning opportunities; diversionary activities (arts, crafts, garden projects), support to help family members work together; support services for grandparents/kinship carers and for partners; programmes for children, young people and siblings; services for people with a family member going through the court system or in prison and services for family members bereaved by substance misuse. We also sign-post and make onward referrals to other relevant organisations.
Within our person-centred care planning processes we undertake comprehensive assessment, identify all needs, empower the beneficiary to identify their priorities and then from our menu of services plan and agree a support package and interventions to address the identified needs and priorities. Measurement and outcome tools are used to track progression and transitional success for beneficiaries including Carer Support Outcome Profile; Action plans, focus groups, and questionnaires.
We offer a range of proven interventions that take a positive approach to the whole person, often addressing multiple issues; we aim to create enduring and sustainable positive changes for people, their circumstances and the wider community.
A very successful intervention we deliver is Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT) which is a behaviour modification programme for carers to help their resistant loved ones get into treatment and manage problematic behaviour's. Its three main aims are: to get a loved one into treatment; to reduce a loved one’s substance misuse behaviour, to improve the overall quality of life for the supporting family member (identified carer).
We also deliver Adult Adverse Childhood Experiences (AACE's) and Children and Young People ACE's programmes.
AACEs programme assists individuals who have experienced adverse childhood experiences resulting in emotional trauma and are able to take part in a group. AACEs is designed to assist individuals to look at ways to develop positive lifestyle coping strategies.
AACEs educates and informs parents about the impact of adverse childhood experiences on them and their children.
AACEs programme provides guidance on the protective factors and practical methods for parents to develop resilience they need for themselves and their children.
ACEs CYP has been written to work with children/young people who are living with, or have lived within, households and communities where there are significant events that mean they are experiencing high levels of emotional trauma but are able to take part in group activities.
The ACEs CYP provides an intervention that will provide a foundation that aims to develop practical skills, build self-esteem and self-confidence. By providing interventions in a group setting, it also provides the children/young people with an environment that reduces social isolation and encourages the building up of social skills. This enables the development of resilience through meaningful participation however some of the children/young people that attend may need further interventions to recover from their trauma.
The programme runs for eight-weeks and has a range of techniques and self-help ideas, the programme provides the child/young person with the skills needed to take part in more in-depth therapy-concentration and understanding emotional regulation.
We also deliver parenting programmes including Teen Triple P and Strengthening Families.
The evidence based interventions we provide aim to build resilience and recovery in individuals, families and in turn within our community.
