Ms Sarah McGillivary:

Any loss of residential beds is a loss, considering there are very few stabilisation, detoxification and treatment beds available in the country, particularly in the light of the overall number of people accessing services for help with drugs and alcohol. Any loss of a residential bed is significant. Keltoi was unique in its approach and it is important to recognise that. We had a direct referral pathway to Keltoi, which was a massive help. A five-week treatment period for people accessing residential care is fantastic because there are no outside distractions and they are allowed the time to sit with themselves and seek the help they need through key working sessions, psycho-educational group sessions and whatever each individual programme looks like because they are all different. What happens then? That is the constant question. What happens after the five-week or ten-week programme? The length of treatment depends on the treatment centre.

When we talk about recovery, there is an holistic change for somebody who wants to enter into, for example, abstinence recovery or complete drug- and alcohol-free recovery. There is a differentiation to be made between being drug free and being in recovery. Being drug free is physically walking past something but still being mentally and emotionally tortured by it. Recovery is a process that involves taking the time to get to know ourselves, to be nice to ourselves and to do the emotional and mental work required, as well as the physical work. That is what recovery is. It incorporates those three core components. If I am going to walk past a drug, I might be mentally okay but remain upset emotionally. If that is how I feel, I will return to drug use. That is the piece. The aftercare, transitional programmes and recovery groups are missing. They are not there. We can submit referrals to treatment centres until the cows come home but if those people are returning to the same environments they left, perhaps including homeless accommodation or no accommodation at all, which is not unheard of, they are going to default back to what they know how to cope with and how to manage best. They are going to go back to the thing that has been there for them consistently for the past 20 years, that has never let them down and that has enabled them to get away from the situations in which they find themselves. If we do not have transitional housing and are not looking at aftercare or the community initiatives that are currently in place in Chrysalis and Sankalpa, and other places in the north-east inner city, and if we are not looking to have such services around the country, the piece that comes before does not make sense. It does not fit.