Our services are structured according to the four clear stages of 'Forward's Theory of Change' model. This research-based model works with service users to sustain progress through interventions and programmes; each step will increase in intensity, build human capital and enhance connection.
For most service users, this journey usually starts with referral to one of our 'core services' which are commissioned by local and national government departments or the NHS.
We deliver advice, support and treatment in six community services and 17 prisons to help people achieve personal goals related to their use of drugs and alcohol, whether that is to use more safely, cut down, or become abstinent and achieve recovery. We offer ‘psychosocial’ support (therapeutic interventions on a one-to-one and group basis), alongside ‘clinical’ support (opiate substitution treatment and other health interventions).
We manage a wide range of intensive abstinence-based recovery programmes - community day programmes, residential centres, prison programmes and online intervention programmes - that seek to help clients make transformational changes away from addiction and into recovery.
In prisons, we also deliver mental health support in the form of talking therapies in three prisons. We also deliver the NHS England Reconnect Initiative, which links prison leavers with community-based healthcare support provision in the East of England.
In addition, we offer a confidential online support service - often providing a gateway into accessing our services, or to signpost to other trusted sources of drug and alcohol support in the community.
We are one of the UK’s largest providers of Commissioned Rehabilitative Services (CRS) for people on probation, working in 14 areas to connect people to accommodation, access addiction and mental health support, improve family relationships, and make new positive social networks.
We are proud to have been named a delivery partner at HMP Millsike, a new prison focused on positive incentives and rehabilitation. Within this partnership, we manage pioneering family and visitor services, and a dedicated house block for positive rehabilitation activity, which houses our ground-breaking ‘More Than My Past’ desistance-based programme.
We deliver a range of services that develop the employability skills of marginalised groups - including job coaching and placement, vocational training and qualifications, and support for people who run their own business or want to start one.
As well as ex-offenders and people in recovery from addiction, we also support young people not currently in education, employment, or training (NEET), individuals claiming Universal Credit, and those from other disadvantaged backgrounds. We work with a broad range of employers and partners to support individuals looking for work to secure a sustainable job placement.
We also offer employment opportunities through our own social enterprises: Blue Sky Services (grounds maintenance), Amenity Landscaping (garden maintenance), and The Brink recovery café in Liverpool.
Everyone who engages positively with our core services, and is making progress in their own personal development, becomes a part of the ‘Forward family’. We encourage them to join our Forward Connect peer led social network (which is a national network of local groups who meet and support each other, celebrate progress, and give back to local communities through volunteering), and take advantage of our supplementary services:
Additional one-to-one support and groups for those exiting structured drug and alcohol treatment and who are pursuing abstinence, delivered by staff and peers who are themselves in recovery
Programmes and services in prison and community settings that repair and develop our service users’ relationships with loved ones, alongside direct support for family members affected by addiction (through our dedicated family programmes - M-PACT and Recovering Families UK).
Peer-based shared housing where service users on similar pathways live together and support each other, and also independent living options through our Vision Housing model
Structured training and support for current and former service users to gain experience, qualifications and employment within Forward or others in our sectors.
Taken together, these recovery and belonging services provide individuals with the additional wrap-around support that helps them maintain their progress towards transformational change and lasting recovery. Not everyone we work with needs this extra help and support but for those who do, it is life changing.
Our service models reflect and apply the evidence based on what works in supporting recovery and desistance - in particular, the work of Dr David Best ('recovery capital' and 'recovery-orientated systems of care') and Shaad Maruna (identity formation, becoming a 'Desistor' and narrative approaches).
In addition, our in-house Research Team evaluates individual services, interventions and programmes on an ongoing basis, driving continuous improvement and innovation.
