As we celebrate Recovery Month, a graduation ceremony took place in Taunton, Somerset for those that have completed Turning Point’s Somerset Drug and Alcohol Service’s (SDAS) ‘Peer Mentor’ training programme.
The group of graduates are all people who have successfully completed treatment through SDAS and will now be able to support others suffering with addiction.
The programme is a 10-week, level 2 accredited training course which will enable them to support SDAS service users, co-facilitate groups and work with the relatives of service users.
The new group of Peer Mentors will now be able to use their own experience of treatment and recovery to support other service users to achieve recovery too.
Alice, SDAS Peer Mentor said, “I lost my child through alcohol addiction. I gave up my job as a mental health nurse. I lost my whole life and ended up remanded to prison… I am very passionate about recovery. About women in recovery, about Mums and Dads in recovery. Let’s remove the stigma that goes with that. We want to shout at the top of our lungs that we’re people. We are very capable and proud to have done this course.”
National Recovery Month (September) promotes awareness and understanding of substance use and encourages individuals in need of treatment and recovery services. The month is an opportunity to celebrate individuals living lives in recovery and to recognise the dedicated workers who provide the prevention, treatment and recovery support services that help make recovery possible.
Professor Trudi Grant, Director of Public Health at Somerset Council said,
“The Peer Mentor training programme is so important as it is exactly these people who are best placed to help others living lives so familiar to them.
“Their lived experience will be a vital tool in helping to provide the essential non-judgemental support that others living with addiction so truly need.
“This group of new Peer Mentors have been on an incredibly inspiring journey and it is a remarkable achievement to have completed the course and now be able to make recovery a possibility for others.”
Joseph Olubodun, Peer Mentors and Volunteers Team Leader at SDAS added, “Money cannot buy all the knowledge and experience of the lived experience that our mentors will now bring to enhance our service delivery for those clients still in treatment.
“We salute them all and celebrate their wonderful achievement.”
This blog was originally published by Turning Point. You can read the original post here.
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