Dartmouth Street Programme (DSP)
In the last ten years it has been recognised that there are people who take substances who have severe and enduring mental health problems, and this has become a way of self medicating or escaping from the pain of living with their symptoms. This ‘cycle of dependency' has now been diagnosed as ‘dual-diagnosis', as it is recognised that the addiction has resulted from the individual's struggle to live with a mental health symptom that they neither understand nor know how to manage on a day-to-day basis.
As there has traditionally been a gap in service provision for clients suffering from dual-diagnosis, DAF developed a specialist programme in 1999 called The Dartmouth Street Programme (DSP). The programme is group-based and suitable for clients with a wide range of mental health problems, including paranoid schizophrenia, psychosis, depression, anxiety disorder, bi-polar disorder and borderline personality disorder. The DSP remains the only group programme of its kind in London.
The DSP offers three programmes; the first is a structured 12-week programme called the Phoenix Group, which has been designed for clients to achieve total abstinence from substances by offering a safe space to explore new ways of adjusting to a life without drugs or alcohol. In 2003 the DSP developed a second service for clients with a dual-diagnosis that are not accessing services because of their active alcohol and drug use, the Reflections Group. This programme is also 12 weeks in duration but clients are not expected to be abstinent from illicit drugs and alcohol in order to be accepted onto the programme, but must remain clean and sober on the days of their attendance. The third programme, the New Hope Group, is specifically for people with a diagnosis or traits of a personality disorder.
All three programmes are designed to be flexible so that new service users can start every week and it can be completed in 12 weeks. However, longer and shorter periods on the programme can be arranged. Support is provided in the following ways: Relapse prevention, the using of prescribed medication, support with social/life skills (including communication), budgeting, education, relaxation and stress, individual counselling and key-work support, dealing with anger, suing art creatively, alternative therapies (including Acupuncture, Reflexology and Massage and Health and Nutrition. The DSP has Support Services available to clients on Monday and Friday afternoons as an additional support for clients either side of the weekend.
Click Here to find out how to refer yourself to the Dartmouth Street Programmes.
Click Here to find out about our charges.