January

The 2nd of January 2025 saw the service open back up after being closed for just under a week, since Friday 27th December 2024. A few challenges throughout the month such as a leak and no heating during an icy week didn’t prohibit any of our services running as usual. Plans were put in place, things were changed around and everything ran as it should have. The end of January saw the beginning of a new Monday group for our Men’s Programme. With the Men’s Friday group averaging at about 8/10 clients consistently per week it only felt right to open the service on another day to offer more support to those who already attend the Friday group, but also those who, for whatever reason, cannot attend on Fridays. Our Friday group runs from 2:30-4:30pm and the Monday group will run from 3:30-5:30pm. Should you be in interested in this programme please don’t hesitate to contact us. The first Monday group took place on Monday 27th January with 8 in attendance. With the structure of the Friday group being food from 2:30-3:15pm and other planned activities from 3:15-4:30pm we would hope that the Monday group will run on a similar structure. For our Slanu group the month of January bought the beginning of an 8-week course of Stress Management Workshops with an outside Facilitator as this was something which was identified as a need amongst the group. The group continues to work through a mosaic art project of the feelings wheel. 6 out of 9 of the places on this programme are currently engaged; new clients are always welcome. Our Women’s Crack Cocaine programme started their 12-week Contingency Management Programme on Friday 10th January 2025. The group continues to offer a Friday programme and drop-in on a Monday from 9:30-4:30pm (service closed from 1-2pm in between), and Tuesday drop-in from 2-4:30pm. There is a huge push needed to keep these drop-ins open as numbers have gradually dropped off. Our 6th Class transitional group started during the last week in January for our Youth Programme and we are accepting school referrals for our next cycle that will run from April until July.