Recovery Coach

Volunteer with us as a Recovery Coach

recovery coach

Role Description

All three of our Teams across Devon 

Newton Abbot, Exeter and Barnstaple

Local Community Development Lead

Minimum of 6 hours per week, Maximum of 16 hours

Brief Description of the Project:

Together is a Drug and Alcohol Community Support Service. We cover the whole of Devon, minus Plymouth and Torbay. We have a large team that includes Community Development, Recovery Workers, Nurses, Prescribers, Volunteer Roles and much more. We offer support for those have issues with their drug and/or alcohol use from point of referral to achieving their own goals. We have several pathways within our service that include structured group work, psychosocial interventions, prescribing, needle exchange, detox and outdoor peer activities.The Recovery Coach role is a vital part of the support Together offer. Even when someone has met their treatment goals and are in a position where they are ready to leave the support of our service, it can be really daunting to leave. The Recovery Coach role is part of our core pathway and offers the people we support 10 weeks of support from a Recovery Coach to support the transition from Together to the rest of their lives. 

Purpose of the Role:

With your own recovery, you are an ‘expert by experience’, in this role you will offer support to others and help them to see that recovery is not only possible, it is likely. As a recovery coach you will be actively and authentically engaged with your own recovery and the wider recovery community around you. 

 

The role will involve you being partnered with specific individuals who are at an earlier stage of their recovery and by using your own experience and knowledge of recovery, you will support these individuals to progress with their own journeys. This doesn’t mean that what worked for you, will work for them directly, but it does mean that with your skills and understanding of what’s available in your recovery community, you are able to explore all recovery options that are open to your coachee.

 

This role is more in depth than the Peer Mentor role as it involves completing a Level 3 Accredited course to be able to start and required the Recovery Coach to work 1-2-1 in the community with their Coachee, responsible for their support for 10 weeks before they are closed from Together. This is a fantastic opportunity for development for anyone who has a minimum of 12 months in stable Recovery. A huge amount of support, training and coaching is offered to successful candidates to ensure you have all the skills and knowledge you need to be able to successful in your role.

Key Activities of this Role:

  • Be a role model to others, leading by example.
  • Promote visible Recovery within Together recovery services and after care.
  • Work alongside coachees to help them identify and set their recovery goals
  • Guide the person into the recovery community by sharing information about, and signposting to, community resources and assets and accompanying coachees at first if required
  • Provide feedback in a non-judgmental and supportive way
  • Facilitate access to mutual aid: Support understanding, accessing and attending mutual aid meetings.
  • Text or call service users to assist in attendance of appointments or recovery focused activities & groups.
  • Attend regular group and one to one support/supervision sessions and actively contribute and invest in your own self development and reflective process.
  • Support training, to represent that it feels like to be part of the service
  • Attend meetings such as ‘Service Development’ and ‘Working Better Together’ to represent the voice of the people we support in organisational planning and decision making. 
  • Support with on boarding staff such as, Interview Panels and Staff Inductions
  • Be actively and authentically engaged with your own recovery for at least one year
  • Willingness to share from own experiences
  • Able to describe the benefits and challenges of recovery
  • Willingness to learn about different recovery pathways, including attending meetings to develop your knowledge and understanding.
  • Awareness of the importance of boundaries 
  • Able to recognise own limits
  • Sound understanding of addiction, treatment options and recovery
  • Belief in anyone to recover and always maintain hope
  • Competent in the use of IT
  • Good level of reading and writing skills as Coaches will be expected to maintain case records and communicate in a variety of ways 
  • Ability to be ‘yourself’ and work to your assets and strengths 
  • Ability to offer information and advice in non-judgmental manner
  • Able to inspire and motivate others
  • Active listening, paraphrasing skills
  • Demonstrate patience and persistence 
  • Ability to build good relationships
  • Ability to be ‘yourself’ and work to your assets and strengths 
  • Self-acceptance and ability to care for own recovery