Scottish Families is a national charity which supports anyone affected by someone else’s alcohol or drug use in Scotland, whether they are still actively using substances, are in recovery, or you are bereaved.
We give information and support family members with confidence, communication, and general wellbeing, and we link them to our services and local support services. We also help people recognise and understand the importance of looking after themselves.
‘Over the years, Scottish Families family support has been invaluable. When life can be greatly impacted by chaos, Scottish Families steers us to calmer waters, helps us see the bigger perspective, helped us find meetings locally and much more.’ – Family Member
Our National Family Support Services include:
We also have Local Family Support Services in Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire, Forth Valley, Fife and Inverclyde. We will always refer family members to appropriate local services if they do not live in the areas covered by our local support.
It takes on average 8 years for a family member to come forward for support and for every person who uses alcohol or drugs, 11 people are impacted. Families are often exhausted, demoralised, frightened and sad. Together, our role is to re-energise and encourage them to discover the skills they have and to help them with health, hope and healing, and see that they can be empowered to make choices and move forward positively.
“You come into a situation that is new, you are in it and there is no escape, but you can’t leave. Family support can give opportunities to educate, come up with new strategies and have more tools to deal with the situation.” – Family Member
In your role as a Community Link Worker, you are often at the forefront of providing crucial support to individuals and families facing various challenges. We have included some information below that may be helpful for your work, whatever situation you find yourself in.
Why do families need support?
When we first start to get to know family members, they have so much to tell us, so much that they want us to understand, so much that they want to offload. Often talking to us will be the first time they have spoken to anyone outside of their immediate family about what they have been experiencing, they may not even have spoken to close family or friends.
We meet each family member where they are and work with them at their own pace, we don’t have an agenda set for them. We know that family members can make long term change that will benefit them, their loved one, their wider family and their communities.
But they are often exhausted, demoralised, frightened and sad.
Our role is to re-energise and encourage them to discover the skills they have and to help them to see that they can be empowered to make choices and move forward in a positive way.
We achieve this by focussing on interventions that:
- Uphold our understanding that families prevent and reduce harm and risk
- Are backed by evidence
- Relationship-based
- Trauma-informed
Support comes in a range of different sizes; across the local family support services we offer:
- One-to-One Support
- Group Support
- CRAFT (Community Reinforcement Approach & Family Training)
- Creative Coping Activities
- Writing and Book Groups
- Opportunities to get Oot & Aboot
- Connect, Learn & Share Sessions
- Access to holistic therapies like Reiki, Meditation, Yoga, Tai-Chi, Cold Water Swimming
- Access to Naloxone
- Support to Access Bereavement Counselling
In One-to-One Support, we give family members a confidential space to talk about the impact of supporting their loved one. We guide them to explore the issues affecting them, encourage them to express their thoughts and feelings, and help them to come up with ideas and solutions to move forward. Common topics include improving communication, setting boundaries and self-care.
Most family members are anxious about joining a group and often will say- “I’ll come but I probably won’t say very much.” That is rarely the case. Sharing experiences with others that
really ‘get it’ and are willing to share what they have experienced can bring a sense of relief to family members, make them feel less isolated, and help them to find a more proactive way to cope with their situation.
At Scottish Families Affected by Drugs, we love using CRAFT (Community Reinforcement Approach & Family Training). CRAFT is a set of 7 structured sessions and is a solution-focused, skills-based programme with a strong evidence base. It involves roleplays to help family members practice new skills and has small assignments and tasks which they are asked to do away from the sessions.
We encourage family members to consider creative coping and Oot and Aboot activities to nurture their creative spirit; enable them to discover activities that interest, challenge and distract them; activities that can help them understand themself and their world in new ways; and activities that can help them forget about their concerns for a time.
Sadly, not every loved one can find recovery and if the family member has lost someone who used alcohol or drugs, our bereavement service is here to support them. We will chat and offer advice and information, and we can also put them in touch with an accredited counsellor who is local to them. Our service is free and is available across Scotland.
Contact Details
Scottish Families offers support to anyone in Scotland over the age of 16 who is affected by someone else’s alcohol/drug use.
Our Helpline is available on 08080 10 10 11, we also have information and webchat available on our website.
As a Community Link Worker, you have access to our professional referral form where you can directly refer a family member to our services. Our form is available here.
Rebecca Bradley is Communications Development Officer at SFAD.
