Open Road was established in 1990 by Richard Ashrowan and Bridie McElroy at their home in Colchester.  Open Road subsequently moved to the Trinity Centre in Colchester.  Initially it opened for acupuncture, Chinese herbs and Counselling and in its first year saw 50 service users who were living with problems related to drugs, alcohol or tranquillisers.

In 1991 we moved premises to 15 Queen Street, extended our opening hours to 5 full days per week and added additional therapies including shiatsu massage and aromatherapy.  In the same year we started a needle exchange and introduced HIV testing and counselling.

The demand for our services was significant and in 1992 we set up our volunteer scheme.  A year later we managed to raise funding to purchase a new site in Colchester.  In 1994 funding was secured for a similar project in Clacton – which was a joint initiative between NEEDAS (North East Essex Drug and Alcohol Services) and Social Services.

• Art group
• Relaxation Group
• Relapse prevention
• Group Acupuncture – drop in
• Leisure World Group.

In 1997, we secured a grant from the National Lottery Charities Board, which enabled us to purchase and open new premises in Clacton.  Group therapies increased as a result.  At the same there were significant service developments in user involvement, shared care arrangements with other statutory and non-statutory bodies and outcome monitoring – based on goals negotiated with service users.

In 1998 we introduced a new computer network, with support from Colchester Catalyst Trust.  This meant that we could start work on developing a comprehensive database for statistical information, thereby increasing our capacity to measure our performance and identify areas for improvement or development.  The provision of information, advice and support in relation to Hepatitis C was introduced and there was a significant increase in all aspects of our work in Clacton.

In January 2003 we obtained additional funding from Essex DAT (Drug Action Team) to start a third service in Mid Essex.  Initially operating from Changes (the Statutory Drug & Alcohol Team) in Chelmsford for two years, we then finally secured our own site in Braintree which commenced in March 2005.

Open Road offers a secure structure within which to monitor, develop and grow our services – we have good trustees and sound management practices.  Our organisation is clear and accountability is strong.  We are self-critical, which means that we keep all our services under review, we maintain our standards and we review our management and public information, our organisation and our service users’ needs.

We provide a range of skills, experiences and expertise and offer services that make use of these.  We are able to work creatively as individuals, as a management team and as a group of staff and volunteers.

We are proud to have achieved recognition from and credibility with our partner agencies and funders and we look forward to developing these relationships further.  To our service users we offer an informal and welcoming environment and a firm opportunity to make a real difference to their lives in a safe and non-judgemental setting.  We are certain that demands for our services will grow, all trends point in that direction.  We have the freedom to respond quickly and appropriately to peoples’ needs and we want to be able to maintain that position, but will require further resources to do so in the future.

With continuing increases in demand for our services we have to be able to sustain them.  This means:-

• Exploiting and developing networks and partnerships with other agencies, funders and local businesses.
• Ensuring that we have cohesive and effective lateral communication within our organisation, especially as it works from two sites and is largely made up of part-time workers.
• Promoting our services effectively in order to appeal to a broader range of potential funders
• Securing funding for a longer term, to enable planning and design of service developments to take place within a firm financial framework.
• Attracting, recruiting, developing and retaining volunteers.
• Making sure we make the very best use of all resources – information, people, money, premises….
• Finding more space to meet the growing demand
• Being in tune with Primary Care developments, Social Services , Probation and Department of Health developments to ensure that we can tap into the broadest range of funding available and ensure that we are up to date with latest developments in our field.
• Using IT effectively to monitor the quality, effectiveness, cost and throughput of our work and to promote access to and awareness of our services
• Continuing to build on our strengths as a team.

Our approach is totally consistent with and meets some of the objectives outlined by Keith Hellawell (UK Anti-Drugs Co-ordinator) in his 10 year Strategy to tackle the UK drug problem.

In particular we aim to:

(i) Help to protect communities from drug-related anti-social and criminal behaviour,  by:

• Developing treatment programmes for drug-related offenders

(ii) Increase the participation of problem drug misusers in drug treatment programmes by:

• Ensuring drug misusers, irrespective of age or background, receive quick access and support from appropriate services, including working directly with Primary Care services
• Providing drug misusers with accurate information and advice to help them avoid infections and other health related problems
• Providing integrated and effective responses to people with drug/alcohol  and mental health problems
• Contributing to ensuring that throughcare and aftercare provisions are coherent, focused and linked to local provision.