Compass is one of the largest national providers of young people’s substance misuse services. The work we do is designed to enable the wider children’s workforce to identify young people in need quickly and to increase the number of young people in treatment and their successful reintegration into mainstream services.

We see ourselves as a vital support for the young person and their family at times of critical need, not as a permanent presence in their life. Our aim is always to build the young person’s motivation and capacity to break their addiction and sustain their recovery so that they can achieve their potential, academically, economically and socially. Increasingly, we work with young people to improve their sexual health and emotional wellbeing as part of a wider focus on tackling risk-taking behaviour.

We have over 14 years’ experience of developing and delivering locally integrated, young people-friendly services for children and young people affected by their own or another’s substance misuse. Last year, our young people’s services supported more than 3,500 children and young people within a variety of outreach settings and delivered more than 900 targeted and specialist group work interventions.

In every case, we work with young people as individuals, tackling their substance misuse as one of a number of vulnerabilities with which they present. Our work for young people routinely involves advocating for them and building their advocacy skills, brokering relationships with family and friends and working to increase their confidence and self-esteem.

The key to our success is effective joint working with the wide range of statutory and non-statutory agencies involved in the care of vulnerable young people. Each of our young people’s services work hard to build the confidence and competence of the wider children’s workforce to identify and deal with substance misuse, increasing early identification and referrals into treatment.

What We Deliver

Each Compass young people’s service is designed wholly around the needs of young people, their families and local circumstances. Our services operate on a centre-based and/or outreach model, with each able to deliver specialist harm reduction, criminal justice and psychosocial interventions. We increasingly provide specialist healthcare interventions, drug testing for Youth Offending Teams and pharmacological services for young injectors.

Our comprehensive range of services include:

• Providing targeted interventions and activities in the community, such as drop ins and group projects, that maximise the opportunity to identify and engage with vulnerable young people.
• Offering specialist harm reduction and talking therapies wherever the young person is comfortable and safe, to improve access, engagement and retention of young people in treatment.
• Addressing wider ‘risk taking behaviour,’ such as tackling sexual health and emotional wellbeing, in conjunction with substance misuse.
• Promoting the active participation of young people in the design, development and delivery of Compass services.
• Developing services in partnership with Youth Offending Team to support, line manage or deliver Youth Offending programmes and drug testing requirements.
• Establishing ‘link workers’ who build the working relationships between ourselves and priority agencies such as CAMHS, Rathbone, hostels, training providers and treatment providers.
• Devising and delivering comprehensive programmes to build the competence and confidence of the wider children’s workforce to identifying and engage with young people around their substance misuse behaviour.
• Tracking the multiple vulnerabilities with which a young person presents, in order to assess the quality and effectiveness of the support we deliver.
• Delivering surgeries at satellite locations to provide professional consultancy to the children’s workforce and crime prevention teams, including Youth Inclusion Programmes and Youth Inclusion and Support Panels, to strengthen referral and care pathways, communication, and workforce development.
• Working in partnership with Connexions and providers of employment, training, education and housing provision to enable social re-integration up to 21 years of age

Where We Deliver

For more information about our young people’s services, please see:

• Compass Hull Young People’s Service
• Compass Nottingham Young People’s Service
• Compass Coventry Young People’s Service and Early Intervention Service
• Compass Warwickshire Young People’s Service
• Compass Enfield Young People’s Service – Sort It!
• Compass Harrow Young People’s Service
• Compass Lambeth Young People’s Service
• Compass Croydon Young People’s Service – LYF (Love Your Future)
• Compass Milton Keynes Young People’s Service
• Compass North Yorkshire Risk Taking Behaviour Service