Residential rehabilitation

Accessing detox facilities and residential rehabilitation

Unless you are able to fund your own detoxification and residential rehabilitation, you will need to access community and clinical services.

Before you can be considered for residential rehabilitation, an initial assessment needs to be done. This is a meeting between you and member of the substance misuse team and is called a community care assessment.

The assessment will find out if residential rehabilitation is the best service for your identified needs. It will normally involve both the clinical and community services.

Prior to going to residential rehabilitation, you will work with the substance misuse team care manager to prepare yourself for rehab. The process from assessment to actual admission may take several months, as there are many factors that need to be in place.

Detox and rehabilitation is a lengthy and life-changing process, requiring considerable preparation and investment from yourself and the services involved. Many people who choose detox and rehabilitation do so because they can no longer manage in the community and need to get away to improve their chances of becoming substance free. Some people, who choose the option to leave the area, tend to relocate after they have completed treatment and successfully rebuild their own lives.

If, after an assessment, it is agreed that your needs would be best met by residential rehabilitation a request for detox funding is made.

The decision to request funding is usually made in conjunction with the CPN, care manager and yourself. A referral is made to the clinical psychiatrist for an assessment. Once this assessment has been carried out, detox funding may be made available. If funding is secured, services will then be identified and your name will be added to the community substance misuse service rehabilitation waiting list with the intention of securing a suitable residential placement.

Once on the waiting list ongoing preparation for rehab continues. This covers a wide range of activities, for example:

• visiting services
• reducing use of substances
• motivational work
• expectations
• practical tasks of making tenancy safe if away for several months
• informing relevant agencies such as Council Tax, benefits, etc
• booking of bed space at the resource
• actual reduction of substances to safe level. Many resources will not admit unless the individual is on 30mls of methadone or less, for example
• arrangements may need to be made if childcare/temporary fostering is required or if the children are accompanying the parent to rehab
• assessment of the individual by the rehabilitation unit for suitability of placement and agreement by rehabilitation unit to offer placement
• transport arrangements to the rehabilitation unit
• consultation with employer prior to admission to allow the individual time off for treatment

Family members, where possible, need to be involved as much as possible during the preparation process.

Once your residential treatment start, the care manager will maintain regular contact through visits / reviews with the agency providing you rehabilitation and yourself until discharge. For some people, this may be after a couple of days, if they decide this is really not for them, or for anything up to a year when all treatment has been completed.

If you then decide to relocate to a new area you will need to arrange access to services that are local to the area you have chosen to relocate to. Aberdeenshire’s care manager will close the case after discussion and agreement from all parties.

If, however, you return to Aberdeenshire, work will continue between the you and the care manager for as long as required. You will be encouraged to continue to rebuild your life through programmes of accessing education, training or employment.

Residential detox funding

Residential detox is jointly funded between Health and social work. There are limited funds available. They are targeted at people most in need. To ensure this is fair and equitable we use a set of pre-determined criterion:

• Criteria for residential rehabilitation leaflet (pdf 155kb)