Project Aims and Objectives

To be a place of recovery for all women with addiction issues in the NICDTF area

Mission Statement

SAOL is a community project focussed on improving the lives of women affected by addiction and poverty.

Vision Statement

SAOL is working towards transforming the way in which Ireland responds to addiction and poverty.

Strategic Plan

We are:

Goals

KPIs

Advocates

We will continue to represent our participants (where they are not empowered to represent themselves) at local and national settings.

SAOL will continue to be involved in fora that lead to influencing policy in favour of our participants.

We will continue to advocate on the specific needs of our current participants.

We will continue to advocate on the general needs of women in addiction at both local and national levels.

All staff will, as appropriate and within the confines of our staffing resources, be supported in representing the voices of women in addiction at local and national level through presence at meetings, joining committees and attending conferences.

SAOL will continue to make staff available for policy-based committees

SAOL will continue to raise the issue of poverty among its participants as a critical block to stability and recovery.

SAOL will, by end of 2016, explore training for staff in a human-rights based approach to addiction so that we can better represent our participants in the fora we attend.

SAOL will actively promote on concerns relating to women with specific attention to non-addiction related heath issues; recidivism and support for women after prison; and access to services that are cognisant of the particular needs of mothers.

SAOL will meet with HSE, Probation Service and Voluntary/community sectors during 2016 to actively respond to

· Matters relating to sexual health

· Greater awareness of recidivism for women

· Cancer and women

· Detoxification for mothers

A Children’s Centre

To continue to build a safe environment within which children can grow, develop and learn.

To enhance our data-base so that comprehensive individual care plans are avialable for all children attending SAOL by January 2016

To continue to pass all inspections by the HSE.

To continue to fully comply with legislation relating to child protection.

To develop appropriate parenting programmes to assist families raising children where addiction is a problem being addressed

To implement a ‘Parenting Under Pressure’ programme in SAOL and make it available to families using the Children’s Project by April 2016

To increase our service hours from part-time to three-quarter-time by summer 2016.

Increased hours and service provision available for each child in the SAOL Beag

A Community Asset

To continue to create and publish resources for professionals working in the addiction area; all will be written for women while also being usable with men and young people.

To publish at least one document/manual per year and to make it freely available for download from our website.

To continue publishing creative documents that enhance the lives and experiences of the participants of SAOL

To publish at least one document/manual per year and to make it freely available for download from our website as well as, cost allowing, prinitng copies for participants to own and bring to their families.

To be a resource to the local community and wider addiction-related fields as a source of expertise on issues relating to women, addiction and recovery.

To provide on-going training (as demand requests, to a maximum of 10 days of training per year) and conferences on topics relating to women, addiction and recovery. At least one conference will be hosted per year by SAOL on thee topics during the life of this strategic plan.

Educators

SAOL will continue to provide socially appropriate education programmes for women; this will include challenging the current perception that all education programmes should be geared towards labour activation.

To continue to be able to record the provision of both accredited and therapeuitc group work programmes to an increasing number of women.

We will promote the needs of participants in recovery over and above the needs of labour activation by XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

We will also continue to keep community and feminist approaches to the fore of our educational approach.

Participant/Peer Informed

We will continue to have participant involvement at all levels of the project.

We will re-activate participant membership of the Board of Management by Novemebr 2015.

We will continue to have active meeting with all after-care and CE participants regarding the topics/activities for education programmes.

We will increase involvement of parents in the development of the Children’s Centre through a series of formal meetings; this will be in place by January 2016.

We will develop peer specific training programmes and give practical experience to peer participants in the delivery of education programmes with their peers.

We will activate a new peer-training programme (over and above programmes already developed for Hep C awareness) by April 2016.

We will continue to promote the voice of women in addiction services with those self-same women and create as many opportunities for their voices to be heard as possible.

We will bring participants to conferences and meetings wherever possible and request an invite for them where they are not intially invited. We will record all occassions where this process has been both successful and unsuccessful and report on these experiences.

Trauma Informed Carers

SAOL will become a Trauma Informed Care centre.

All staff are trained in ‘Trauma Informed Care’ and we will implement the ‘Seeking Safety’ (Najavits) programme by January 2016.

Trauma will become a topic regularly discussed by SAOL (staff and participants) and will be ‘normalised’ within the Project.

All assessments will screen for PTSD by January 2016.

A conference on the topic of trauma in addiction will be hosted by SAOL during the lifetime of this strategy.

SAOL will endeavour to ‘trauma-proof’ addiction services and policies and make comment where it finds ‘re-traumatising’ practices in evidence.

SAOL will begin by trauma-proofing our own services (to be completed by January 2016).

We will attend to the new national drugs strategy and comment on both its gender-proofing and re-traumamatising elements.

We will promote, through our website, a trauma-proofing checklist for all services to examine their own pracitces.

Other guiding objectives:

Participant Objectives

to provide a range of educational programmes, including QQI accredited modules, to enhance participants' stability, self esteem, social and material prospects.
to enable women of the North Inner City with drug misuse problems to access education and a range of other psycho/social supports to assist in their better integration into their communities and wider society.
to develop gender specific educational inputs that empower participants to address the personal, social and economic inequalities which impact on their daily lives.
to help reduce the risk behaviour associated with relapse to drug and alcohol instability, and to assist in reducing the harm caused by drug misuse to individuals, families and communities.
to encourage reducing dependency on drugs and alcohol and to support improving overall health and social well-being, while promoting the aim of leading a drug-free lifestyle.
to work towards meaningful and satisfying outcomes including personal, developmental, health and vocational gains.
to positively impact on any offending behaviours of participants, reduce re-offending and assist in reintegration into the community for those who have been in prison.
to develop participant centred, individualised Care Plans with set goals and targets.
to provide structured one-to-one support and advocacy service with the aim of addressing personal, family and structural barriers to progression.
to provide specific cocaine and crack cocaine interventions to assist participants, their families and the wider community to reduce and/or stop the use of these drugs.

Inter-agency Objectives

to develop strategic working relationships with relevant agencies on the participant’s behalf.
to promote the meaningful inclusion of participants in developing social, health and economic policies in the community.
to liaise with other agencies to facilitate progression routes for the participants.

Strategic Objectives

to support participants into decision making roles in their communities.
to create and maintain realistic and valid measures for evaluating outcomes in keeping with the projects ethos.
to actively engage in local and national fora to ensure the prioritisation of gender and equality issues which impact on women drug users.
to develop responses to the increasing prevalence of cocaine and crack cocaine use in the North Inner City of Dublin.
to maintain regular periodic reviews of the programme.

Childcare Objectives

to provide early childhood education to the participants' children.
to use a proactive partnership approach in developing a relationship with the whole family.
to centralise the child’s individuality, strengths, rights and needs in the provision of quality early childhood experiences.
to promote and maintain the physical environment of the Children’s Centre in order to maximise the child’s learning and development.
to respect diversity, and ensure that all children and families have their individual, personal, cultural and linguistic identity validated.
to promote equality and to respond to the individual needs and abilities of each child.
to form responsive, sensitive, consistent and reciprocal relationships between the childcare team and children.
to adhere to all relevant Irish and International early years legislation and guidelines.
to work towards achieving the NCNA All Ireland Centre of Excellence Award.

Aftercare Objectives

To provide a follow-on educational programme (including QQI accredited modules) that will further enhance participants' stability, self-esteem, social and material prospects after they have taken part in initial treatment and recovery programmes.
To enable women of the north inner city in recovery from past and newer substances to access education and a range of other psycho/social supports to assist in their better integration into their communities and wider society.
To enable women of the north inner city in active poly-drug use and recovery from drug addiction to access education, training and employment.
To develop gender specific educational inputs that empower participants to address the personal, social and economic inequalities which impact on their daily lives.
To help reduce the risk behaviour associated with relapse to drug and alcohol instability, and to assist in reducing the harm caused by drug misuse to individuals, families and communities.
To encourage reducing dependency on drugs and alcohol and to support improving overall health and social well-being, while promoting the aim of leading a drug-free lifestyle.
To work towards meaningful and satisfying outcomes including personal, developmental, health and vocational gains.
To positively impact on any offending behaviours of participants, reduce re-offending and assist in reintegration into the community for those who have been in prison.
To develop participant centred, individualised 'AfterCare' Plans with achieveable goals and targets.
To provide structured one-to-one support and advocacy service with the aim of addressing personal, family and structural barriers to progression.
To provide specific cocaine and crack cocaine interventions to assist participants, their families and the wider community to reduce and/or stop the use of these drugs.

You can view a brief history of all that SAOL did over its first 20 years by clicking here.

Case Management »

Case Management and Care planning are an integral part of our Programme. Case Management involves establishing and maintaining links with relevant services in order to give participants the best opportunity for progression.

Saol Project