Open Road
- Is a leading charity in East Anglia and Kent providing wellbeing initiatives, counselling, and practical help for people affected by drug or alcohol addiction and other health and social problems.
In 2019/20, Open Road:
- Helped over 9000 people with a wide range of problems including 2789 in structured drug and alcohol treatment and over 400 offenders.
Achieved Recovery: 75% of users exiting an Open Road structured service successfully completed their treatment programme.
- Started delivering drug and alcohol support at a new refuge for women with complex domestic abuse and substance misuse problems – this level of combined support is very needed but extremely rare.
- Continued the expansion of our SOS Bus service in Colchester and Chelmsford to London. In 2019/20, over 1100 people were supported on an Open Road SOS Bus, and while the service was shut down for the COVID-19 lockdown we lent our buses to the NHS.
Operated 7 major drug and alcohol treatment centres in Basildon, Chelmsford, Clacton, Colchester, Chatham, Gillingham, and Harlow as well as substance misuse treatment in HMP YOI Cookham Wood.
- Operated outreach and provided services across Essex and Medway from service points in our own buildings, GP practices, schools, community centres and other facilities.
Continued expanding our street drinker outreach, from a start in Colchester we now also cover Chelmsford and Clacton.
- Launched our Drink Aware service protecting club-goers in Colchester and Chelmsford.
Provided welfare services at the Latitude festival, and a third year of service at the Steel Yard festival in London.
- Delivered the Appropriate Adult service across Essex, which protects the rights and welfare of young people and vulnerable adults detained or interviewed by the police. The service attended 1096 calls in 2019/20.
- Provided a harm minimisation programme and needle exchanges to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis and provide a pathway into treatment for drug and steroid users. In 2019/20, approximately 230 substance users accessed the needle exchanges at our centres, and approximately 30000 needles were exchanged
Led delivery of needle exchange provision at pharmacies throughout Essex. This project was transitioned to a computerised system and distributed 364, 838 needles.
- Worked in partnership with Drug & Alcohol Action Teams, police forces, criminal justice services including prisons, the National Probation Service and community rehabilitation companies, local authorities, social services, youth offending, the NHS including NELFT and EPUT, and other voluntary sector organisations, including Forward Trust, and our Essex Choices service consortium partners The Children’s Society.
- Had a turnover of £2,987,775 in 2019/20 funded through Public Health, local councils, North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group, Big Lottery, CRCs, charitable trusts and donations from businesses and individuals.
In 2018/19, Open Road:
- Helped over 11000 people with a wide range of problems including 3325 in structured drug and alcohol treatment and over 300 offenders.
Achieved Recovery: 78% of users exiting an Open Road structured service successfully completed their treatment programme.
- Started our Time to Change Medway Wellness service, which supports people in recovery with volunteering and mentoring and groups and diversionary activities.
- Piloted an expansion of our SOS Bus service in Colchester and Chelmsford to London. In 2018/19, over 1200 people were supported on an Open Road SOS Bus.
Operates 7 major drug and alcohol treatment centres in Basildon, Chelmsford, Clacton, Colchester, Chatham, Gillingham, and Harlow as well as substance misuse treatment in HMP YOI Cookham Wood.
- Operated outreach and provided services across Essex and Medway from service points in our own buildings, GP practices, schools, community centres and other facilities.
Provided welfare services at the Rize Festival, The successor to Chelmsford’s V Festival Open Road provided similar services at V Festival for twelve years. We provided a second year of service at The Steel Yard festival in Liverpool and London.
- Delivered the Appropriate Adult service across Essex, which protects the rights and welfare of young people and vulnerable adults detained or interviewed by police. The service attended over 1200 calls in 2018/19.
Provided a harm minimisation programme and needle and needle exchange to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis for drug and steroid users. In 2018/19, approximately 400 substance users accessed the needle exchanges at our centres, and approximately 50,000 needles were exchanged.
- Led delivery of needle exchange provision at pharmacies throughout Essex. This project distrubuted approximately 35,000 needles in 2018/19.
- Transitioned the pharmacy needle exchanges to a computerised system provided by Neo360.
Worked in partnership with Drug and Alcohol Action Teams, Police Forces, the NHS, Criminal Justice Services including prisons, the National Probation Service and Community rehabilitation companies, local authorities, social services, youth offending, the NHS including NELFT and EPUT and other voluntary sector organisations, including Forward Trust and our Essex Choices service consortium partners The Children’s Society.
- Had a turnover of £3,220,1312, funded through Public Health, local councils, North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group, Big Lottery, CRCs, charitable trusts and donations from businesses and individuals.
- Employs 98 members of staff and works with 201 volunteers and mentors. in 2018/19 we employed 8 ex-volunteers.
In 2017/18, Open Road:
- Helped over 11000 people with a wide range of problems including 3262 in structured drug and alcohol treatment and over 500 offenders.
Achieved Recovery: 75% of users exiting an Open Road structured service successfully completed their treatment programme.
- Began providing substance misuse treatment in HMP YOI Cookham Wood, a young people’s prison in Medway.
- Extended our successful work with street drinkers in Colchester into Chelmsford.
Operated 6 major drug and alcohol treatment centres in Basildon, Chelmsford, Clacton, Colchester, Gillingham, and Harlow.
- Operated outreach and provides services across Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Medway from service points in our own buildings, GP practices, community centres and other facilities.
Managed the Colchester and Chelmsford SOS Bus services to reduce the negative impact of the night time economy. In 2017/18, over 1000 people were supported on an Open Road SOS Bus.
- Has provided welfare services at V Festival in Chelmsford for the last twelve years. In 2017 we provided a similar service at the Steel Yard festival in Liverpool and London.
Delivers the Appropriate Adult service across Essex, which protects the rights and welfare of young people and vulnerable adults detained or interviewed by the police. The service attended over 1100 calls in 2017/18.
- Provided a harm minimisation programme and needle exchanges to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis for drug and steroid users. In 2017/18, approximately 500 substance users accessed the needle exchanges at our centres, and approximately 40000 needles were exchanged.
- Led delivery of needle exchange provision at pharmacies throughout Essex. This project distributed approximately 250000 needles in 2017-18.
Employed 96 members of staff and works with 249 volunteers and mentors. In 2017/18 we employed 25 ex-volunteers.
- Had a turnover of £2,986,115, funded through Public Health, local councils, North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group, Big Lottery, CRCs, charitable trusts and donations from businesses and individuals.
- Works in partnership with Drug & Alcohol Action Teams, Police Forces, the NHS, the National Probation Service and community rehabilitation companies, local authorities, social services, youth offending and other voluntary sector organisations, including our Essex Choices service consortium partners The Children’s Society.
