A New Lease of Life

3SC contract manage Intuitive Thinking Skills on behalf of Merseyside Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC). Intuitive Thinking Skills first delivered a pilot programme of Intuitive Recovery and Skills Tu Employment in 2016. With 3SC’s support, they have been re-contracted ever since:

“3SC were involved from the start, providing a reporting and monitoring platform that significantly helped us to ensure not only that we had robust procedures to evidence outcomes properly, but also that those procedures grew with the contract, and were flexible to the needs of our learners…After the completion of the pilot, we were awarded an annual contract to continue provision in Merseyside and the relationship with Karen continues to develop and is crucial to us achieving and surpassing our target outcomes” Peter Bentley Managing Director

It’s always great to get case studies showing the impact of the work of our delivery partners. The following story about NC shows the positive, life changing impact of Intuitive Thinking Skills services.

NC was an unemployed 39-year-old who had been drinking heavily since the age of 22. NC had started to drink alcohol whilst at university and never viewed this as a problem, more of a way to be sociable whilst at university.

NC had control of his drinking up until the age of 34. He was working in London at the time as a management consultant; his life was good, and he was carefree.

Looking back NC believes around 2014/2015 his drinking became problematic. Unfortunately, a family member had mental health problems and tried to commit suicide. This led to NC moving back home, to help look after this family member. NC turned to alcohol to block out his thoughts and feelings.

“I believed at the time that alcohol was helping me, I believed I could rely on alcohol to take away my problems.”

NC sought support for his drinking and was referred to the Intuitive Recovery (IR) course by his Case Manager. The IR course is an accredited educational programme that promotes abstinence as achievable and easy to maintain, providing skills and tools to recognise and control addictive desires and to take responsibility for choices and behaviours.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NC was offered the IR course online supported by daily calls by his tutor to discuss what he had learnt.

NC really engaged well and showed a clear demonstration of the key skills he was taught from the first two sessions.

On the third session his tutor got no answer from NC which was unlike him and alarm bells were raised as he was previously really focused and had engaged so well. His tutor kept calling NC and leaving voice messages for him to get back in touch and re-engage, and also informed his Case Manager.

After about a week, NC called George to explain that he had tried to commit suicide and that he was sorry for doing this and he had been in hospital as a result. NC had disengaged with the course and had stopped doing his voluntary job as he had just given up.

His tutor immediately contacted NC’s Case Manager to make sure that the he was given the relevant support.

NC was then called and re-engaged, the key skills where refreshed and more time was given to NC to make sure he had a greater understanding of where those negative thoughts were coming from and how he could best challenge them.

NC really embraced the course and the skills he learnt whilst on the course to challenge his thinking on both alcohol and his mental health.

NC completed the course and has also gone back to his voluntary work. NC has become more confident and has a new sense of wellbeing and is keen to move forward with his life.

“I found the IR course really helpful; I have now recognised that I am in control of my thoughts and my actions. My mental health has improved and the thoughts around suicide has changed, instead of debating with the negative thoughts I now challenge them. I am in control.” NC

Karen Knight, Contract Performance Manager, 3SC