The Fife Alcohol Drug Partnership & Ending Homelessness Together Team with Fife Council have developed a brand-new initiative to assist users of any addiction issues, and this involves assistance around housing issues.
Manager Dougie Ovenstone told us about the group which has been around since 1977 and is now based at 24 Hill Street Kirkcaldy, having expanded from their long-term premises in Tollbooth Street.
From there they have a ‘walk in’ service or a 24-hour phone self-referral on 01592 321321. He said, ‘One of our projects is ADAPT (substance recovery) designed to help and assist people in the community with all levels of substance misuse and it’s all about support’. He revealed ‘the direct correlation around people’s wealth or lack of wealth, feeling alone and disconnected, struggling with heating and eating, sometimes a substance becomes that medication and helps them escape from all that’. The aim is to help make the abuse a bit safer for the client.
Funded initially for a year, practitioner Lisa May Young is a volunteer with FASS but works with ADAPT as her daytime job and one of four Hospital Navigators, said ‘the biggest step is coming through the door by referring themselves.’
She is delighted to be involved in the new project at the Victoria Hospital telling us ‘people are referred or taken to A&E where they now have the opportunity to chat here about what they would like to change and why they would like to change’.
Lisa is founder of community group Kirkcaldy Strong and regular columnist with Fife Free Press. They both were interviewed on community radio K107FM with availability to listen again for 90 days.
