Purpose

This report seeks approval to award grant
agreements to external providers to deliver substance misuse
interventions. 
 
Savings generated by the contract value
awarded to Change, Grow, Live (CGL) to deliver Camden’s
Integrated Drug and Alcohol Service has resulted in a
£500,000 underspend across the Health and Wellbeing Drug and
Alcohol Cost Centres.  According to the requirements of the
Supplementary Substance Misuse Treatment and Recovery Grant, local
authorities must demonstrate that substance misuse budgets from the
Public Health Grant are fully spent on drug/alcohol related
interventions. 
Therefore, any underspend
generated in this cost centre must be reinvested in substance
misuse services.
 
Officers propose to issue two grant agreements
using some of this underspend.  One to Via Care (providers of the designated
drug and alcohol service to people experiencing homelessness
– InRoads) for £15,000 to provide clinical psychologist
supervision/support to staff to assist with staff
retention. 
The other grant of £14,000
will be awarded to The Reader Programme which will be offered to
people accessing (or contemplating accessing) drug and alcohol
treatment. 
The Reader is a national charity
and has pioneered the use of Shared Reading as a simple activity to
build personal stronger, more supportive communities. Shared
Reading groups bring people together on a weekly basis where
novels, stories and poems are read aloud. The group will pause to
think and talk about what they’ve read, and a trained Reader
Leader will help guide discussion. Group members are invited to
read aloud, share their thoughts or simply
listen. 

Content

THAT the Director of Health and
Wellbeing approves the awarding of two grant agreements using drug
and alcohol 2024-25 cost centre underspend to:

 

1.     
Via Care, for £15,000 to
provide clinical psychologist supervision and support to InRoads
staff.

2.     
The Reader Programme, for
£14,000 to provide a series of Shared Reader groups for
people accessing (or contemplating accessing) drug and alcohol
treatment.