Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) has produced a Recovery Passport for people who are living with the impact of Alcohol Related Brain Damage (ARBD). Kathryn Schofield (HSCP Social Care Officer) and Sarah Innes (HSCP Occupational Therapist) began to develop the idea of the passport around the start of the first COVID lockdown. They wanted to design a document that would support people’s journey through services, helping them to clearly explain their diagnosis, and their experience of the condition.

ARBD is not a widely recognised condition, and consequently it’s often underdiagnosed. The Recovery Passport was developed in collaboration with the people supported by the ARBD Team, with the aim of developing a holistic and person-centred resource. It can be hard to provide person-centred care when many services and professionals don’t understand the challenges faced by someone with ARBD; it can also be difficult for family members to know how to support their loved ones. The Passport provides an accessible overview of support needs, preferences and the outcomes and guidance that emerge from clinical assessments. It contains strategies to promote recovery, to learn to live well with ARBD, and will support people to be more able to achieve and record their personal rehabilitation goals and ensure that those supporting them are more effective in their roles. The Recovery Passport can also be used to begin discussions with family members and how the family can help with their recovery.

The hope is that the Recovery Passport will empower those with alcohol related cognitive problems to avoid having to explain their support needs each time they come into contact with new services and allow them to focus on their recovery.

The next step for the Recovery Passport it to trial it with a number of participants, and feedback has already been received from users, family and staff:

• “Having a name [ARBD] helps with trying to explain it to people. People can listen and support me to know what’s wrong and help me get on the right track.”
• “If it’s written down, I can go back to it if I forget it.”
• “I could use it to talk to my daughter.”

Kelda Gaffney, Interim Head of Adult Services (Specialist Mental Health and Alcohol and Drug Services), said: “The ARBD Recovery Passport is a therapeutic tool that we hope will support service users track their progress and work toward their rehabilitation goals. It can also help people transition between services, give staff across the HSCP an understanding of how ARBD impacts on the service user, and how the ARBD service can best support staff to meet service user need. I would like to acknowledge the amount of effort and commitment from Kathryn and Sarah in developing the Recovery Passport, which was based on service user engagement. Service users told us clearly that they experienced a range of challenges before and following diagnosis of ARBD, including a lack of knowledge of ARBD across services, a lack of understanding of the impact of ARBD and the need to recount their circumstances on numerous occasions. The multi-disciplinary ARBD team work with people with a person-centred and trauma informed approach, and the tool will complement the support that they provide to service users, families and staff.