Social Value UK

Topic: Substance misuse

YMCA Black Country Wren’s Nest Navigator Project Forecast of the Social Return on Investment

“The evaluators were commissioned to complete an evaluation of the Wren’s Nest Navigator Project.

The project aims to reduce crime and ASB on the estate, reduce unemployment and increase educational attainment, increase individual resilience and generally raise the skills and aspirations of estate residents by working with individuals and families via a combination of buddying, mentoring, physical and online activities and support.

The project outputs were to support 120 individuals per year. The activities planned aimed to support adults and children and young people to overcome barriers and increase their resilience the project aims to reduce entrenched worklessness, improve independent living skills, improve quality of life and raise aspirations for the benefit of future generations.

…for every £1 invested in the Wren’s Nest Navigator Project, there is £3 of social value returned so far.“

16/01/2023
Taiwan Drug Free World Association Social Return on Investment Report

Since founded in 2015, the Taiwan Drug Free World Association (the Association) has been committed to anti-drug education and promotion in honor of the belief in “prevention is better than cure.” The Anti-drug Lecturer Training Program offers intensive 8 hours training. The program combines both theory and practice and enables trainees to be capable of providing a 40-minute speech on stage to teenagers or any target audience despite their lack of experience in the beginning. It is our hope that through these anti-drug lecturers, anti-drug education will continue to be disseminated, from the north to the south, from communities where housewives are trained to companies and corporations where the sales representatives and administrators are trained, and to even military officers and legal affairs staff at military bases. Within just a couple of months, the number of trainees who have completed the program grew to several hundreds. Such an influence went viral over a few years. The Association, however, hopes to take advantage of more substantial and quantified data to help with continuous advancement in the planning and implementation of the “Anti-drug Lecturer Training Program”. This is why the Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology is introduced to review them.

This study adopts the SROI methodology to review the social impacts of the Anti-drug Lecturer Training Program between 2016 and 2018 from the perspective of stakeholders. Through interviews and questionnaires, it was found that trainees not only learned how to give an anti-drug speech but also had significantly grown in their awareness about drugs and hence were able to turn them down. In addition, the program helped enhance their ability to communicate and express themselves, boost their self-confidence, and increase their attachment to their work. The enterprise they belong would also have an improved corporate image. Additionally, the cost of educational training for employees and the operational cost were reduced.

Changes for students, by the same token, include increased health awareness and increased sense of attachment to their school. With the above-mentioned outcomes and input combined, we calculated and obtained the result that for each New Taiwan dollar invested, it would create social value worth around NT$6.67. The sensitivity analysis results were between 5.33 and 15.46. We also discussed these results and get the feedback from stakeholders during the research with the Taiwan Drug Free World Association to optimize improvement plans. It is our hope that with constant advancement and joint efforts, the social impacts may be maximized through the Anti-drug Lecturer Training Program to turn Taiwan to be the first drug-free island and purified land.

26/03/2020
Pine River Institute: the social return on investment for a residential treatment program

When compared with other high-income countries, Canada has some of the highest prevalence and frequency rates of substance use among youth. One of five Canadians will experience an addiction or mental health issue within a given year, and 70% of mental illnesses have their onset during adolescence. Canadians aged 15 to 24 are more likely to experience addiction or mental health issues than any other age group. In order to address these issues early in life, young people experiencing severe addiction, mental health and behavioural issues may require intensive, long-term residential treatment. Pine River Institute provides such treatment to young people between the ages of 13 and 19 who face addiction issues, as well as behavioural and psycho-social
challenges (Mills & McNeill, 2014). PRI opened in 2006 and is the only program of its kind in Canada, offering a comprehensive suite of wilderness, residential, transition and aftercare treatment. This report focuses on the economic value of the health and behaviour outcomes for young people who have attended PRI since 2010, relative to the cost of service provision.

07/09/2017
Value Creation by Taitamariki Programme

01/08/2017
The efficiency and effectiveness of the Housing First support service
“‘Housing First’ is a tried and tested approach to providing permanent housing for homeless people who are dependent on alcohol and drugs or who have mental health issues, with the support, social care and health services they need provided to them in their own homes or locally in their community. The intention is that housing should be available even if a homeless person refuses treatment for their substance misuse or mental health issues. A ‘harm reduction’ approach is adopted rather than a requirement of abstinence as a condition of tenancy, which is common in many accommodation-based services for homeless people. This approach is seen as respecting the individual’s right to a home of their own and to a personal and private life. It is the dominant homelessness policy in the USA at Federal, State and City levels; and it is also the preferred policy in a number of EU countries notably the France and the Republic of Ireland. It has also been adopted with variations in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Many of the Housing First projects referred to in the literature have been subjected to monitoring and research. The research shows that services had high levels of success and made positive gains for a majority of service users in terms of improved:
- health, mental and physical well-being;
- social and community participation,
- lower levels of crime and antisocial behaviour;
- reduced substance misuse; and
- high levels of tenancy sustainment (up to 88% of service users were still housed after 5 years in the original Pathways Housing First Project -New York; and the rate at which service users retained their housing was more than 90% in Amsterdam and Copenhagen, and just below 80% in Lisbon).”
12/04/2017
Final report for the Give it Up project

“Substance misuse is a key public health priority within the UK. Recent policy recommendations have highlighted the importance of providing services which focus on substance misuse recovery, not just treatment. Such support provides individuals with the skills and experiences they need to address key issues in their life which support their substance misuse recovery. It is hoped that this approach will help people to maintain abstinence and avoid relapse.

It has been recognised that the development of recovery capital is key to successful recovery. Recovery capital refers to the resources available to sustain recovery and refers to four key elements: human capital, social capital, physical and economic capital and cultural capital. Current service provision is predominantly provided by NHS, Local Authority and voluntary sector organisations. Some substance misuse provision in the UK does include a recovery function, however, recovery communities have an important role to play in delivering a range of services to support the development of recovery capital.

The Comic Relief ‘Give it Up’ Fund is a programme that aims to develop and build abstinence-based recovery communities and learn more about their value. The Give it Up Fund was delivered between October 2014 and October 2016 to support the development of recovery communities in four
geographical locations in England.”

12/04/2017
Valuing Family Support

Family support is where individuals with common problems associated with drug use or addiction in their families can share their experiences. Family support is a recognised form of support for families experiencing difficulties and stress related to a child, parent, sibling or other family member’s addiction problems. Family support can be offered in peer group setting or one-to-one basis. The model of the family support advocated by Ireland’s National Family Support Network is a peer-led support group model, where individuals can openly share their challenges and perceptions with other people.

An important aspect of family support is the flexibility of the model to support individuals experiencing a range of problems, not just drug and alcohol problems; for example, other challenges can include drug intimidation, bereavement, educational disadvantages and unemployment. The stress of having addiction within the family can have a debilitating effect on individuals resulting in feelings of stress and vulnerability, negative coping withdrawal from family and friends, and in some instances, leading to other forms of addiction. Accessing family support is an appropriate form of support that can help reduce and manage these negative consequences.

24/02/2017
A Cost-Benefit Analysis of a Potential Supervised Injection Facility in San Francisco, California, USA

01/02/2017
Cost-Benefit Analysis of Drug Treatment Services: Review of the Literature

“Background: How valuable is public investment in treatment for drug abuse and dependency in the real world of everyday practice? Does drug abuse treatment provide benefits and how are they valued? What are the costs of obtaining outcomes and benefits? Cost–benefit analysis attempts to answer these questions in a standard analytic framework.

Aims: This paper reviews cost–benefit analyses with scientific merit so that analysts will have a current picture of the state of
the research. It will also give public decision-makers information with regards to the available evidence for policy purposes.”

19/10/2016
Cyrenians: Impact Report 2016

26/08/2016
Seven Steps

Psychosocial Intervention Model for people who inject drugs in Ukraine

7 Steps intervention is based on the results of the research carried out by the Central University of the Caribbean, School of Medicine, Center for Narcological Studies (Puerto Rico) with the support of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (2001). Psychosocial intervention model is a cognitive behavioral intervention aimed at HIV prevention among active PWIDs, which combines recruiting the participants from the most-at-risk populations, individual counseling and comprehensive case management of the clients. Such combination promotes change in the behavior, which results in reduction of risks of infection with HIV/STI/viral hepatitis, general health improvement and further commitment to healthy life style. The intervention includes 7 structured modules carried out during 3-6 months.

25/07/2016