Charter gains a touch of Alchemy…

UK’s top Addiction Specialists launch Charter Adolescents

Have communications with your adolescent broken down? Do they seem unhappy or anxious?  Are you concerned they may be drinking or using alcohol or other addictive substances? 

Then Charter Adolescents can help.

Research shows that Adolescents are more vulnerable than any other age group to developing, alcohol and other drug addictions in fact drug use is higher among young people than the adult population as a whole[1], yet there are a lack of specialist facilities to help them.

[1] http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/drugs-misuse-dec-1112-tabs/extent-young-tabs

Which is why Mandy Saligari, Founder and Director of leading London addiction facility Charter Day Care, Residential and Counselling Centres has joined forces with Stephen Noel-Hill of Alchemy to form Charter Adolescents.

Stephen has extensive experience working with adolescents and young people spanning twelve years working at the Priory Hospital Roehampton and Adolescent Units in Holland.

Mandy has a well-established presence in independent schools lecturing on addiction, parenting for prevention and self-esteem. She has long since wanted to set up a service especially for adolescents addressing the issues that are brought to the surface in these school talks.

“Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to self-defeating coping mechanisms, our main aim with this service is to encourage a valuable sense of self, working with the young person and their parents – many of whom just don’t know how to cope with the issues their children are raising or the behavior they are presenting.”

Both Mandy and Stephen understand that that early intervention and prevention are fundamental to successful outcomes. It is this common vision that led them to merge Alchemy into Charter.

Charter Adolescents is an exciting new service that will do what Charter does best: intensive non-residential treatment and multi-disciplined counselling and therapy. The focus is on early intervention, education, emotional development and appropriate referral to give the adolescent and the family a new lease of life.

With a counselling team who are specialists in this area and experienced in work with young people, alongside Stephen’s expertise and Mandy’s guidance, this service will be dedicated to young people.

Working in groups, individual and family sessions and workshops, after school hours and at weekends, Charter Adolescents is an intensive and brief intervention and counselling service targeted to work with addictive disorders and emotional disturbance.

Charter is well established as a leading London addiction facility offering focused, flexible and effective day care for all addictive disorders at competitive rates.

For more information visit www.charterdaycare.com or call 020 73234970 or email  info@charterdaycare.com

Charter Day Care, 15 Harley Street, London W1G 9QQ

 

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Enquiries: Jenny Rose, jenny@happypr.co.uk M: 07957 551 697.

 

 

 



 

 

Parenting for Prevention Workshops

I have been presenting Parenting for Prevention workshops in schools across the UK for around 10 years and am now planning to bring this material into the treatment environment as a workshop targeted towards helping parents whose children suffer from addiction.

Every parent with a child of any age who is acting out in an addictive way needs to be aware of their boundaries, be able to present a consistent response to any demand or behaviour, and to feel that their decision is seated in respect and self esteem.

I often get asked where the line is drawn between good parenting, ie the duty to love, guide, punish and teach, and unhealthy enmeshed parenting where there is often an over involvement and overt sense of responsibility and resentment. Although the age of the child is relevant in this discussion, the core principles are the same and a big question is who is in charge?

In a family where addiction is present it can often appear as if the addict is running the show, able to hijack any interaction or event and frequently create worry and drama. But of course it is not the addict per se, it is addiction itself that is operating within the family system. Once parents and family members start to behave in a coordinated and healthy way, changes always happen.

This workshop is specifically designed to illustrate adolescent reactions that can feed conflict and splitting which are instantly recognizable. There is usually a lot of laughter in this workshop before parents get down to working on understanding and then practicing the simple responses that can make all the difference.

These patterns always exist in addictive relationships and it is vital that those close to the addict know how to navigate them, to feel confident that they are supporting the solution not feeding the problem.

Please contact the office if you are interested in attending any of our workshops in the future: 020 7323 4970

Family Groups

Family Group is a very important part of Charter’s addiction treatment programme.  Currently costing just £150pa per family member for unlimited access, the groups provide an introduction to addiction and vital peer and counselling support for family members of an addict.

The familiar position of lose:lose is the domain of the families of addicts, where it is so hard to know what to do as your loved one perpetually holds the proverbial gun to their own head and, finger on trigger, reacts what you say and do.

At Charter we advocate re-establishing a sense of nourishment and self respect in the family member so that they too can make a decision instead of just reacting to a situation:- fire fighting. This takes time and commitment and I am proud to say that we have a core group of hard working family members cementing the changes with their increasing understanding and personal growth. When one person changes, the dance changes. So whether your addict is on board (yet) or not, working in the family group can make all the difference to the possibility and nature of recovery in your life.

We also hold family workshop weekends that provide a more intensive introduction to letting go with love, enablement vs tough love and how to take care of you – many family members recoil from such apparently new age statements (as did my own parents many years ago) – but these workshops have proven to be of fundamental use to those struggling to gain purchase on this slippery and destructive condition in the life of someone they love.

Addiction is all consuming, self centred, provocative and relentless. It takes experience to know how to behave around it, and courage and compassion not to feed it.  The group will support you while you learn…

Brits Warned: Inactivity As Deadly As Smoking

It is predictable perhaps that I believe it to be our responsibility as parents and adults to inspire the younger generation to adopt healthy ways to live. This is not just about drugs and alcohol, It is about learning to live a healthy life emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. I think that we set an example and children follow.  When I work with parents particularly with children under 12, I look at their own patterns – whether that is of drinking, eating, drug taking or generally how they deal with their emotions – and I usually find the root of the child’s problem, albeit displaced. Sadly it is common for the parents to dislike this route of treatment so much that they withdraw their child from the therapeutic process. Somehow it seems to be infinitely preferable for the child to be the problem rather than the parent.  However, that said, I have huge admiration for those parents who do persist.

Without doubt, we set the standard and the children follow. What is disturbing is when our children grow up enough to, in turn, set the pace. Born of dysfunctional origins, this is a route set for disaster. I am not naive enough to believe that this is easy, with many people in the UK without work, living on the breadline, poorly educated and growing up in extremely difficult circumstances. But I do believe, with the right support, we can inspire many of the population to live differently. It is shocking to read that in the UK 17% of deaths are caused by inactivity, and that we are world leaders in obesity.  Are we really that unhappy a nation that we would commit ourselves and our children to such a slow and painful life and death?

Read more here:  http://news.sky.com/story/961527

Charter Residential at Primrose Hill

With a history of relapse and poor management I sometimes wonder at my wisdom of taking on Primrose Hill as we had such a climate of prejudice to overcome.

Fortunately, under the careful and attentive management of Clare Sole, we have been consistently busy there since opening in 2010. I believe we are now gaining ourselves a reputation by earning it as a boundaried, accountable safe housing service for those needing extra support in their recovery journeys.

We have 10 beds and admit males and females from 18-65 years at different stages of their recovery, as long as they are abstinent and actively engaged in a 12 step programme or in treatment. It’s a lovely mid terrace Victorian house, has a support worker in residence and provides a temporary home from home.

We provide drug and alcohol testing, weekly planning and support, cooking support, an introduction to fellowship, community living with therapeutic duties, curfews and peer responsibilities.

Alongside treatment, or as extra support through transitions geographically, work-wise or relationship-wise, Charter Residential provides an extraordinary service that is affordable, effective and grounding.

We work with you to get well in the context of your life.

Specialist Eating Disorder Services Needed

Eating disorders are about the relationship between food and emotions, where a person seeks a sense of control over their emotions, over how they appear and over the impact their world has on them. It is common for an eating disorder to develop in a person’s early teens and so it would seem appropriate for there to be services specifically targeted for this age group. CAHMS do a great job, and I have met many people who have benefited from time with this service, but eating disorders – and addictions in general – require specialist knowledge and intervention. This is not about simply getting someone to eat, it’s about attending to the disturbance of self and your typical eating disorder will be extremely reluctant to put their eating disorder down. I think Helen Missen raises a very important issue in this report and I for one would be a willing signature on her petition.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-18755034

When I read Kenneth Clarke’s comments I felt a surge of fear, anger and yet some relief.

Afraid because I believe drugs have stolen a fundamental place in our national teen culture replacing integrity, respect and other centredness with an entitled, false empowerment, an arrogance that doesn’t respect its elders nor authority.

Cocaine makes you feel invincible then drops you paranoid from a great height, demanding more; weed ridicules effort and perseverance and heralds ‘chill’ as a demi God, – it IS a gateway drug, without a doubt; and opiates shut you down. This culture is dangerous to us in so many ways and it approaches with stealth under a blanket of denial – ‘everybody smokes dope / it’s a stage he’s going through / I used to smoke dope, don’t over react / its all a part of growing up / its only a line or two / it was fun etc etc.

The work I do in schools and with young adults informs me of how deeply entrenched drugs are in our culture and I am worried. Do we know how to react, how to cope? Are parents, teachers, doctors educated enough on how to behave around drugs and those developing a dependence? And as a nation are we ready? I have children on the threshold of adolescence, I have worked for 20 years in addiction and I know what’s coming. I know what to do and how to react to addictive behaviour, yet in the face of this conflict even I find it difficult to do the right thing and not play into the illness.  This is not easy. Addiction is a powerful adversary. The original Trojan horse.

When a person repeatedly uses something outside of themselves in an attempt to cope emotionally, they abandon their opportunity to learn, stunt their emotional growth, do not invest in and exercise their own resources, and so become dependent and resource-less.  It is vital for the strength of the nation as much as for the health and well being of the individual that a person build up their sense of self, strength, resilience and resourcefulness as they grow up, and this will not happen if the opportunity to learn is swerved.  When that coping mechanism is drugs then an even more pernicious dimension is added of chemical interaction with the brain. Drugs have a physical impact – and those who say they don’t are either lying or being ripped off.  The artificial high creates extreme mood swings, getting stoned increases anxiety and potential for depression, opiates shut a person down and all of them disturb a natural rhythm, that once out of sync will pitch and swing so that a person doesn’t know which way is up.  And that’s the best-case scenario.

I am angry because even in my small radius of contacts I know some excellent therapists: brilliant, inspiring people who are driven by vocation as much as practical need to earn, to do the best they can by the clients they support. Addiction treatment and good therapy works. This chronic relapsing condition is notoriously difficult to treat, but recovery IS possible. We need the country behind us to help train and resource us to field this emerging culture before it takes over our national climate.

With drug addiction comes low self-esteem, bullying, deceit and crime, fear, shame, guilt, obsession, control, isolation, resentment and suppressed emotion. A terrifying recipe for the UK on a grand scale.

I want the government to invest in treatment – not harm reduction, but to get behind a concept of abstinence. I believe we have become an indulgent nation and as a nation we need to learn how to self regulate. We need self-respect and a sense of identity and pride.

My relief is simply that I do believe the Government is seeking a solution. My relief is that Kenneth Clarke does not believe in de-criminalising drugs. My relief as a parent and as a therapist is that for now the message to my own children and the young adults I work with, remains one of integrity – I do not endorse something I know is harmful, and nor does our country.  But this is not enough.

Fiona Geraghty

I was very sad to read the reports of 14 year old school girl, Fiona Geraghty’s tragic suicide due to bullying over her weight. She was bulimic. I was bullied at school and I know how lonely and desperate it can feel. I also know the risky means I took to try and cope. It is heartbreaking that this beautiful young girl took such drastic measures to alleviate her overwhelming feelings of self loathing. It is appalling too that despite public school resources and professional help she slipped through the net. Too easy to happen, too easy to believe the feeling of hopelessness, to listen to the illness  and become a casualty of this treacherous condition.  For me news like this spurs me on in my intent to go the extra mile in our work at Charter and in schools, and to remind all those that will listen that we are responsible for Step 12….there is hope and it lives in every one of us who is committed to walking the walk…we can do what I can’t. Pray for her family who will feel such a huge loss…I will –  there but for the grace of God go mine.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-18521916