RISE Recovery Services – A blog from Ellie McNeil
On 1st July we open RISE Recovery Services and welcome the first service users into the project. Over the last 6 months we have been working with New Start and Action on Addiction to develop a recovery pathway across the city. Action on Addiction are delivering the community rehabilitation element and RISE recovery is a partnership between YMCA Liverpool and Sefton and New Start. RISE comprises of three services, a harm reduction service for women, a rehabilitation service and an abstinence service. The recovery pathway enables a single referral, shared assessment framework, shared outcome monitoring and a shared ethos to service delivery. It provides opportunity for people to access the right service at the right time, Increasing flexibility and service options and supporting people to develop self efficacy.
We have been delivering services in the city for over 170 years. Throughout that time we have learnt that Addiction does not discriminate, it affects people across our communities, our families, our friends, our colleagues. We have invested in high quality accommodation to allow people a place of peace, tranquility and reflection in the heart of the city. A place that enables people to learn to be themselves and know that that is good enough. A place for everyone.
It is often hard to know what the moment is where change becomes possible but in order for it even to be considered we have to have hope. Hope is a word that’s used often, without real thought, “hope it doesn’t rain today” “hope it goes well” “hope so” but actually to hope is something special and precious and immensely strong. When we hope we know that things can and will be better, when we hope we believe in ourselves, when we hope we know that change is possible. Our services will help people hold onto that hope, build on it and turn it into a future for themselves. 
All of our services will focus on supporting people to build recovery capital that lays and strengthens the foundations for sustainable change. Underpinned by cognitive analytical therapy we will work alongside the people that use our services, doing with and not doing to. CAT therapy offers a relational approach to recovery, supporting people to understand what underlies their addiction and what the exits are from it. This service is the first of its kind to use CAT. We have a CAT Therapist and Trainee CAT Therapist on our staff team as well as working to embed CAT as a framework for shared understanding. This enables us to maintain a relational focus to all of our work and in particular how our staff reflect and recognise their own patterns of relating and how that can impact on the people we support.
Social capital is a key factor in people maintaining change, we recognise that by the time people come to our services their loved ones will also have been affected by their substance use. As part of our offer we have a bespoke Concerned Other service delivered by Being Better delivering both one to one and group support.
We are working with our partner The Healing Space to provide complementary therapies that have a strong evidence base in supporting people to Manage difficult.
It has taken huge amounts of hard work to get to our opening today and the staff and our partners have been amazing. But the hard work really does start here and I want to pay tribute to the bravery of people in our services. To take the first step to change, To believe in something different, to hope for something better takes immense courage. It is my hope that together the RISE services will live up to their name people will recover, be inspired, supported and empowered. It’s a privilege to begin this journey with them today and we hope to work alongside many more people in the years to come.