CDP Services
The CDP is an ethical and value based organisation of 20 years standing, founded on a person centred philosophy. Open access, advice and information services have been our core business from conception.
CDP currently offers its services in Hull and across the East Riding of Yorkshire.
Being heavily dependent on self referral, the CDP has always paid attention to:
- First impressions of the Service
- Ease of getting-to-be-seen
There is now a growing body of research, based on the views of service users, that by far their greatest concern relates to how welcoming services are and that something is immediately gained by accessing a service. This is something that the CDP has always recognized and puts great store by.
Perception of staff attitudes are also increasingly being identified as critical to a service user experience, along with the information and choices given:
- The CDP has always expected all staff to be welcoming and non-judgemental, be they client workers, administration or management.
- The CDP recognises that the initial contact is crucial for further engagement with the treatment system, so we consider motivation as a key issue.
People are remarkably resilient in the face of considerable adversity, but a sense of powerlessness can easily arise when faced with intense family arguments, unfriendly organisations, discrimination, illness or disability. This powerlessness inevitably leads to low levels of self esteem and motivation. This has been described as “learned helplessness”. To motivate service users toward change, the CDP has long adopted a mixture of person centred, cognitive behavioural and task centred approaches.
Substance users are also a highly heterogeneous population. Their treatment needs are affected to varying degrees by:
- Types of drug used
- Living situations
- Social/environmental supports and stressors
- The extent of impairments and complications
- Personal demographics
Open access has to cater for this heterogeneity and the diversity of its target population is recognised as key to CDP performance. Staff at the CDP are required to work with service users across the whole range of substances and stages of dependency:
- Substance user (non-dependent)
- Injecting substance user
- Dependent user
- Acutely intoxicated user
- Substance user with other physical/psychological complications (co-morbidity)
- Substance user in withdrawal
- Substance user in recovery
The CDP is always striving to develop a mix of centre based and outreach projects targeting special interest groups such as:
- Black and minority ethnic groups
- Commercial sex workers
- Parents and Carers
- Dual Diagnosis (Substance use and a mental health problem)
The CDP believe that the specialist open access services (Advice and Information) that it provides have a vital role to play in the explanation, clarification and promotion of the aims of Models of Care to service users, families and carers, the public at large and professionals.
