The development of a pilot ‘thinking about relationships prompt sheet’ within an alcohol and other drugs rehabilitation programme

Abstract

This paper documents the development of a programme component within an alcohol and other drugs residential service. Designed to improve relational competence, this pilot component was designed to have multiple levels of function: from the specific, for example, stimulating residents to formulate and monitor relationally oriented goals, to the more pacific, for example, embedding relationally focused learning as an ongoing rehabilitative concern. Development of the component began with a literature review. After finalising a set of relationship types (friends, siblings, etc.), this review identified three domains: ‘values’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘skills’. To create an initial draft, these categories were populated by items selected from a multi-stage inspection of the relevant literature. This draft was then reviewed by multiple stakeholder groups. Feedback from these consultations resulted in substantial modifications to the initial draft. In addition to the component having a broad-spectrum interventive purpose, the authors propose that this component could play a role in (i) pre-admission assessment and (ii) programme evaluation insofar as data concerning individual residents are aggregated and analysed.