Overcoming the harms caused by alcohol, drugs and gambling / 2013
Dear Applicant,
Thank you for your interest in supporting our work by becoming an Aquarius Trustee. Please take some time to read through all the information in this pack, which includes information about Aquarius and the role of Trustees. You can also find out more about the work of Aquarius on our website www.aquarius.org.uk.
If you would like to apply for the role of Aquarius Trustee please complete the application form included and return it to Aquarius.
If you need further clarification or information, please contact us by phone on 0121 622 8181 or by e-mail to . We look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
Annette Fleming
Chief Executive
Contents
About Aquarius / 3The Aquarius Trustee Board / 6
The Aquarius Trustee Role / 7
The Recruitment Process / 9
Application Form / 10
Trustee Board Role Description and Person Specification / 14
Aquarius Trustee Board Terms of Reference / 18
About Aquarius
1 Who are we?
· Aquarius was established in 1975 as part of a Birmingham University research project, to look at developing new and effective interventions for people with alcohol problems.
· We work with people to reduce their drinking to recommended safe levels, or to help them to achieve and maintain abstinence.
· Our theoretical framework is the social ecological model enabling us to see the issue of problematic alcohol, drug or gambling use not just as an individual problem but one that impacts on families, communities and society.
· The Aquarius approach, Personal Skills Training (PST) which is cognitive behavioural based, was developed from the research project. The main concepts that underpin our methodology are:
a) that people use substances to cope with a variety of problems,
b) that people are responsible for thoughts, feelings and actions and are capable of change,
c) that people can change given the right support and alternatives to drinking.
· Aquarius has maintained its commitment to evaluation and research and the development of evidence based effective practice:
- UKATT (United Kingdom Alcohol Treatment Trial) which explored effectiveness of MET and SBNT.
- Involving Family Members – current research project with Bath and Birmingham universities exploring the impact of involving family members in treatment.
- AERC Route 50 – current national research looking at community responses to excessive drinking and alcohol related disorder.
- “Everyone’s Concern” – an evaluation of our outreach work in Kings Norton.
- Alcohol Homelessness in Dudley – evaluation of our initiative in working with homeless people.
- Family Interventions – evaluation of family focused work in Dudley.
- Birmingham Family Alcohol Service – four year CASE PhD studentship.
- Alcohol Arrest Referral – evaluation of the Dudley scheme.
- “Involving Family Members” Training Strategy. Training all staff in family focused interventions, with a CASE Phd Studentship analyzing the impact of this on engaging with families.
- Alcohol & Older People – researching the needs of the over 60’s and how best to respond to their alcohol problems.
- Locality based work. We are funded by the Big Lottery to develop a local alcohol service in the Erdington constituency. We are evaluating this work to develop a best practice model for working with communities.
- Grandparents as carers – we have interviewed grandparents with a significant caring role because of their own son/daughter’s use of alcohol or drugs to ascertain their needs and develop more responsive services.
- Alcohol & the Deaf Community. This 12 month research project is funded by ARUK.
- Alcohol & the Sikh Community – funded by Aquarius. We are working with Sarah Galvani from Bedfordshire University to develop a community alcohol intervention model.
- ‘Time of our Life’ project funded by Big Lottery ‘Silver Dreams’. Fund to develop our work with older people and produce an intervention model that can be applied nationally.
· We currently employ 212 staff and have an annual turnover of £6.5 million.
· We have a strong Executive Committee with skills in research, addictions, management development, human resources, diversity and finance.
· We have service user representation on the Committee.
2 Where do we work?
We are located in:
· Birmingham
· Coventry
· Dudley
· Northamptonshire
· Derby City
· Solihull
· Wolverhampton
· Shropshire
· Stoke on Trent
and provide services in:
· Hospitals
· Primary care
· Probation offices
· Outreach bases
· Hostels
· Youth centres
· Family homes
· Aquarius offices
3 Our work
We provide early intervention services consisting of training, advice and brief interventions and services for people with complex needs.
Early Intervention Services consist of:
· Alcohol, drug and gambling awareness training to professionals, agencies and community groups.
· Information on our website, including self-help materials.
· Advice & Information at health events, festivals and targeted promotional events.
· Screening & Brief Advice – a short 10-20 minute information giving advice & information; on alcohol, drugs and gambling.
· Extended brief interventions – offering up to 6 sessions of structured support and help accessing other services as necessary for alcohol, drug and gambling problems.
· Groupwork – 6 session Life Change courses providing information on alcohol and advice about cutting down your drinking. Relaxation and Self Esteem groups.
· Family support – providing advice and support for families affected by someone’s drug, alcohol or gambling use.
· Debt/Legal Advice – provided by Birmingham Law Centre.
· Brief advice for those arrested with alcohol related offences.
· Education & rehabilitation through our DRIVE Course for those convicted of drink driving.
· Advice & Support for Young People.
· Engagement & plan to work more effectively with BME communities, building knowledge and capacity and information.
Our complex needs services consist of:
· Comprehensive assessment and care planning using a case management approach.
· Assessment and referral for detoxification and residential rehabilitation.
· A structured 12 week programme of interventions and one to one support.
· Healthcare Reviews to co-ordinate and inform all agencies working with individuals about the progress and ongoing needs ensuring there is a co-ordinated and planned approach.
· Aftercare support and groups including Relapse prevention.
· Self-help and mutual aid groups.
· Activity groups – including gardening, walking and art.
· Accredited Offender Management Programmes (LIAP, DID and OSAP) and Alcohol Treatment Requirement (ATR).
· Intensive Family Support for families where there are child protection concerns and alcohol is a significant factor.
4 The Recovery Agenda
The original Aquarius intervention model, Personal Skills Training (PST) has the principles of recovery at its heart.
Aquarius adopted the functional model of drinking seeing “drinking as an act that a person does, rather than helplessly suffers and that drinking behaviour is learned and maintained in the context of the person’s whole life. This includes their biological predisposition, cultural background, family, employment, housing and personal and social issues” (Aquarius PST 1984).
Aquarius has always held the view that clients could resolve their problems with support and guidance and that people have the ability to find their own solutions to their problems.
Getting “a person to stop drinking is only the start of the recovery process … to help people effectively in the long term, it is necessary not just to cope with a current set of problems, but to enable them to deal with future problems. The aim is to help people to help themselves, by enabling them to learn a range of useful skills, applicable to their personal lifestyle” (Aquarius PST 1984).
Aquarius uses the model of change, developed by Prochaska & DiClemente, identifying the stages of change as Pre-contemplation, Contemplation, Action, Maintenance and Relapse. Aquarius recognises that relapse is a common occurrence but the PST model enables clients to cope with relapse, learn from it and return quickly to maintenance and ultimately freedom from dependency.
The Drug Strategy 2010, “Reducing demand, restricting supply, building recovery, supporting people to be drug free” places more responsibility on individuals to seek help and overcome dependency. And an emphasis on providing a more holistic approach, by addressing other issues in addition to treatment to support people dependant on drugs or alcohol, such as offending, employment and housing.
We are very comfortable in working with the concept of recovery. Our methodology puts the person with the problem at the centre, recognises that they are the “experts”, and that service user involvement is integral to service delivery development.
For those harmful drinkers advice, information and short structured interventions may be sufficient for them to moderate their drinking and alter their lifestyle . They will be responsible to harm minimisation information and information on controlled drinking. They may also want to consider abstinence as a goal.
However for those dependent drinkers with serious health and complex social issues they will be supported to recognise that abstinence is the most appropriate goal for them.
Aquarius literature now has the clear statement ‘If you have had an alcohol detoxification and/or if you have serious physical or mental health problems, you are strongly advised not to drink at all.
Our view is that we will support and encourage people to be free from the dependency on alcohol, for some people this may mean controlled drinking, for other with severe dependency, this will ultimately mean abstinence.
We recognise that in the drug treatment world ‘recovery’ may be used to refer to an abstinence model. However we feel that alcohol treatment is about supporting people to have a different relationship with alcohol and that could be abstinence or cutting down to controlled levels.
To achieve this Aquarius adopts a holistic, whole person planning approach which takes into account not only a person’s drinking problem but also housing, employment, family, education, personal relationships, offending and debt.
5 Service User & Carer Involvement
Aquarius is committed to involving service users in the development and delivery of service users and carers at every level.
This is achieved by:
· All services developing service user and carer groups.
· Regular service user and carer meetings attended by senior management.
· Regular service user satisfaction surveys.
· Establishing a Service User Board with representation on the Executive Committee.
· Providing training and support to enable service users and carers.
· Involving service users and carers in the delivery of courses, eg assessment, effective engagement.
· Facilitating service users to access or establish mutual aid groups such as AA and SMART Recovery.
We employ Participation Workers to lead on the involvement strategy.
6 Volunteers & Peer Mentors
We recognise that many people who have used our services are highly motivated and want to ‘give something back’ through volunteering. Volunteers are at the heart of the organisation and have a valuable contribution to make to the organisation bringing a wealth of experience, knowledge, skills and enthusiasm.
We employ Volunteer and Peer Mentor staff to develop this work.
The Aquarius Trustee Board
The trustees of Aquarius form its governing body, the Trustee Board. The Trustee Board has responsibilities which are set out in full in its Terms of Reference. These responsibilities can be summarised as:
· setting the vision, mission and values of Aquarius.
· developing strategy to achieve the charity’s objects (the purposes for which Aquarius was set up) and monitoring performance.
· ensuring that the charity seeks the views of current beneficiaries and considers the possible needs of future beneficiaries in developing strategy and delivering services.
· ensuring effective management of finance, properties, services and all initiatives.
· ensuring that the charity complies with all legal and regulatory requirements.
· ensuring that the charity’s governance (the structures and processes by which Aquarius is organised and run) is of the highest possible standard.
In addition, trustees have an important part to play as advocates for Aquarius and its service users, explaining its work to potential supporters, funders and policy makers as appropriate.
Trustees are expected to behave with integrity and in a way which is open and accountable, and to take decisions always in the best interests of Aquarius. Trustees must avoid gaining personally from their position and must avoid any conflict of interest between Aquarius and other personal or business interests. Aquarius provides standard indemnity insurance for trustees.
Constitution
The Trustee Board is a legal entity with powers set out in the Aquarius constitution (known formally as its Memorandum of Association). Aquarius is also a registered company limited by guarantee and all its trustees are company directors. In addition to compliance with charity and company law, the Trustee Board must ensure that Aquarius complies with other relevant legislation applicable to UK organisations, such as health and safety.
The Aquarius Trustee Role
Our trustees are all volunteers. The Trustee Role Description and Person Specification sets out the responsibilities of a trustee and the kind of knowledge, skills and experience needed for the role. Please take the time to read this carefully as it is central to our recruitment.
Being a charity trustee is an important role. Trustees are individually and collectively responsible for the running and management of the organisation.
The trustees ensure the organisation is governed effectively. Put simply, this means ensuring the organisation operates within the law (including charity and company law), and that we fulfil any contractual and statutory obligations the organisation has.
The trustees also have responsibility for the strategic direction of the organisation. This sounds very grand but basically means having a shared idea about what difference the organisation wants to make in the community and what its main areas of work for the future are.
Meetings for 2014
Executive Committee Meetings
(Trustees, Senior Management and Staff Representatives)
· Tuesday 11 February: 3pm – 5pm
· Tuesday 13 May: 3pm – 5pm
· Tuesday 9 September: 3pm – 5pm
· Tuesday 18 November: 3pm – 5pm