History
The second heroin epidemic affected all disadvantaged areas in Dublin in the early 1990s. In Kilbarrack local community activists joined forces with the statutory agencies to try and tackle the problem. FAS played a leading role in helping drug mis-users, their families and the community by funding ‘special status’ (drugs rehabilitation) CE programmes. Our programme started in July 1997 and year on year we have expanded our services to the local community. In June 2001 KCCP decided to set up Youth Matters an initiative providing a range of recreational, sporting, drama, dance and development activities for young people. Youth Matters links in with over a hundred young people each week (this number increases to 150 during the summer months). Each week a number of clubs are held where young people can come and undertake a range of activities. The summer months allows Youth Matters to organise trips away for all the clubs. These trips include horse riding, canoeing, and swimming and overnight stay in adventure camps the country. A yearly Fun Day is held in August with face painting and bouncy castles. At Halloween a fancy dress party and kiddies disco is held followed by a fireworks display (sponsored by Dublin City Council). For the month of December all the clubs go ice-skating. For a number of years young people have produced calendars and yearbooks. They were also involved in designing and painting wall murals, which are displayed in Kilbarrack DART Station-all of which shows their undoubted talent. Despite not having a proper youth centre Youth Matters continues to try to meet the needs of young people from the Kilbarrack area.

Drugs Rehabilitation Community Employment Programme

Our practical experience over the years has led us to defining our objectives as:

• To help all these people in the Kilbarrack area who are experiencing problems with drugs or alcohol. (This is done through our Community Employment programme and by offering free and confidential counselling to people from the community).
• To act as a support and referral agency for these people.
• To provide counselling and personal development training to these people to empower them to address their problems.
• To provide good quality training so that when they address their addiction problems they will be in a better position to re-enter the labour market.
• To work with the young people of the area providing them with activities and developing an alcohol and drugs prevention model.
• To work with the local schools, sporting clubs, community and youth associations and other interested parties to develop our community.

 
Participant Development
In all our activities KCCP has always taken a person centred approach. We were delighted to have received additional government funding to appoint a Rehabilitation Manager in November 2009. This has allowed us to put care planning at the centre of our work.

Services to Community Employment (CE) Participants
The range of services that we provide in addition to the educational requirements under CE is:

·         Brief, time-limited interventions

·         Low threshold, harm reduction services

·         Education and encouragement on available treatment options

·         Drug Counselling

·         Maintenance of change and relapse prevention work

·         Case management

·         Care planning

·         Dealing with budgetary, housing and child care issues.

·         Dealing with mental health issues-anxiety, depression, hopelessness, past/present physical or sexual abuse, stress management and coping strategies, sleep, anger and grief issues.

·         Dealing with medical issues

·         Dealing with doctors, drug treatment and psychiatric services

·         Dealing with dietary and nutrition issues

·         Helping to put social supports in place (couples, families and friends)

·         Dealing with criminal issues

·         Addressing parenting needs

·         Providing crisis intervention services (including self-harm and threatened suicide)

·         Dealing with sexuality issues

·         Helping clients with pregnancy issues

·         Dealing with recreational issues

·         Helping with daily living issues (personal hygiene, household tasks, cooking and shopping)

 
In 1997 the Bishops in their Pastoral Letter ‘Breaking the Silence’ “welcomed programmes that help people with drug problems to establish greater stability in their lives and ideally to withdraw from all drugs”. This was part of our original aim in 1997 and remains so today. It is our belief that our participants benefit in a range of ways. The Gardai (Raheny) are on record as stating that the crime rate in Kilbarrack has fallen dramatically since the opening of the drug treatment service in the local HSE clinic and the opening of KCCP (combined with better policing). Our programme since day one has enjoyed tremendous support from the Gardai. Our initial focus began on the drug mis-user. Almost immediately KCCP started working with the families and in recent years we have also focused on the children of drug mis-users. KCCP is confident that it has helped individual drug mis-users, their families and has contributed in a positive way to community development.