Posted by Youssef
on 09 Feb 2023
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Simon Sinek encourages we ‘start with why’. With shades of ikigai, his philosophy resonates – life, work, our whole existence – all of it is better with purpose and meaning.
We’re fortunate here at Delamere that our why is so strong; we exist to help guests achieve a positive outcome and in doing so we have the great privilege of helping others. We’re an organisation who’s why is nailed on and it’s one that resonates so deeply with our team, many of whom themselves are in recovery.
So, we’ve always known why we exist and what we want to achieve. How we maintain and grow towards that is about our people and our values.
We keep our values simple and the one that perhaps serves us best is ‘we get better every-day’. When an amazing team of people get behind that notion of constant improvement, great things happen and great things become greater.
‘The Hive’ is how we do it and you can read more about that elsewhere on our blog. We built a whole system dedicated to giving people a voice and ensuring that the nectar (the ideas, suggestions, issues, gripes and so on) help us get busy in a structured, organised way. Our colleagues and our guests here give us our best ideas – they are living and breathing what we do and what we offer- their feedback is legend.
Enhancements to the programme are always top of mind. At Delamere we don’t just write a ‘syllabus’ and are done with it. Like all things it needs nurturing and finessing.
Our Recovery team which comprises Counsellors and Recovery Mentors are continuously enhancing the Delamere treatment model in a structured, thoughtful and considered way. New ideas are raised, vetted, trialled, honed and then either abandoned, parked or implemented. Existing modules are revisited, finessed and updated.
We keep moving forwards for the benefit of our guests, to stay current and continually breathe energy into what we offer.
When a guest comes to stay with us we select their care team with whom they session throughout their stay. A guest’s focal counsellor meets with them formally twice each week and their Recovery Mentor does likewise.
Recovery Mentors work alongside each guest and complete eight assignments; some core, and some prescribed. Above all they relate to and compliment the phase of a guest’s journey.
Initially, as you might expect, assignments are geared towards getting to know a new guest and helping to identify what has brought them to Delamere. The final modules support a guest in planning their continuum of care; what is the plan (specifically) in terms of what they are going to do to protect and maintain their sobriety and wellness.
Today we are implementing an addition to the Recovery Mentor syllabus : Core Values.
We have adopted values that work quite organically. A long standing psycho-education session here is about core values, and how they relate to addiction. It resonated really well with guests, many of whom went on to explore values in greater depth during 1 to 1 sessions. We had several guests who fed back during graduation ceremonies or guest interviews that the values work they’d done here had given them insight and often a framework they will continue to use to help make decisions, and to weigh up options.
To adopt Values work as part of the Recovery Mentor syllabus we arrived at a methodology for supporting each guest in determining what their core values are. It took some time but it’s been honed and crafted into an interactive session that guests really enjoy and benefit from.
Our colleague Phil, who joined us as a Recovery Mentor and progressed to become a counsellor here, has captured a video about Values work and how it relates to addiction
Below we explore further why values work can be helpful, especially as it relates to people in early recovery.
Entering recovery provides us with an opportunity to press pause and take stock of not only what’s been happening in our lives, but also for us to consider how we wish to live our lives moving forward. When we know our core values it can help us immensely in this regard.
As we appraise what our values really are, we can not only make better sense of the past, but also have more confidence in making decisions fully, moving forward. Aligning decisions to our values and honouring our values in how we live can lead to greater enjoyment and fulfilment and a more comfortable ‘emotional sobriety’.
When we are in conflict with our values, we tend to experience emotional stress and turbulence, which can put our recovery in jeopardy.
The phrase ‘To thine own self be true’ is often heard in recovery circles. Our inference (and experience!) is that if we are being true to ourselves, we are not only more likely to be more content, yet we are also more likely to stay in recovery.
Youssef’s understanding of addiction come from time spent working in the recovery mentor role and his own personal experience. Alongside work, he is completing a degree in psychology at the University of Manchester.
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