About us

We aim to offer ways for local people with drug and alcohol problems to become free from their dependence. We also want to reduce the problems that substance use causes to families, friendships, workplaces and communities in County Durham.

Our full package of care begins with creating a “Team around the Family” approach for every person who accesses our service.

We want to work with each person, drawing in their families, to develop their potential for recovery. Individuals’ needs will be taken into account as we strive to support positive outcomes.

We work in partnership with a range of health, mental health, adult, children and young people’s social care, criminal justice agencies, voluntary and community sector services.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspected our service in 2022 and rated us as ‘Outstanding’. Read the report.

The service is overseen by Durham County Council, and is committed to the council’s vision to have an “Altogether Better Place which is Altogether Better for People.”

To make sure that we are providing you with the best possible care, we have made a number of improvements to our service since the visit.

These include:

• Creating a range of new training courses that our staff team have attended, covering subjects such as case note recording.
• Creating a Learning and Development tracker system to ensure that our staff team have attended all of the training courses we ask of them to make sure we can deliver the best possible service to you.
• Creating a tracker system where our staff team are notified when it is time for them to review your Recovery Plans with you.
• Creating a guide for our staff team to ensure that you are receiving the most up to date and best possible harm reduction advice when needed.

Our service is aligned with the Government’s Drugs Strategy (PDF).