Criteria

Inclusion

Our courses are suitable to anyone who are:

• Individuals need to be able to be willing to learn new skills and coping strategies
• Willing to be positively challenged
• Willing to work and reflect in between sessions
• Able to attend all or most of sessions
• Able to manage being in a classroom setting for 2 hours at a time.
• Able to manage their self-care during their engagement with the service
• Aware that there may be a waiting time before the course starts and that we are not able to offer any input outside of the course

Persons referred needs to be seeking help for the courses that we facilitate. Although referrals are made by professionals there is an expectation that the individual is aware and in agreement with the referral in order to support engagement.

If you do not complete DRAMs as part of your role then please ensure that you provide the appropriate information regarding risk on the referral form.

Exclusion

The service is not able to accept self referrals. We are not an assessment or therapy service. Not able to facilitate any one-to-one work.

Experience has shown that if someone is not in a settled situation, for example they have other needs that are more of a priority such as deteriorating mental or physical health, housing, benefits or substance misuse, then they are often not able to fully benefit from the course.

This can have a detrimental effect on their and others engagement and wellbeing. We ask that the referrer contacts the service user if the referral is rejected. We ask this because the referrer will usually have been the last person to meet with the service user and discussed the course.

We have found it can be unhelpful for somebody who has not met with the service user or discussed the course with them to feedback that they have not been accepted.

Contact details for referrals

You can contact the STEP office on 0114 2262660.

Manager – Andrea Gratton

Deputy – Ian Newton

The STEP referral email is STEP.Referrals@shsc.nhs.uk

The GP only referral email address is sct-ctr.step.referrals@nhs.net

Response time

The team aim to respond to referrals within 48 hours and aim to offer initial enrolment appointment within two weeks. If engagement is agreed at enrolment then the individual will be placed on the relevant group waiting lists, which have varying waiting times.

Clinical staff

We are not a clinical team, we are an educational service consisting of: one manager, one Deputy Manager, a 0.5 administrator and five Recovery Workers that facilitate the courses alongside our volunteers ad experts by experience.

The service has been supported by other services within the Trust, particularly the psychology department.