About Us
In February 1965 Alun Emlyn Jones (pictured) was appointed as the sole employee of Cardiff and District Council on Alcoholism. With a great deal of help from volunteers and information centres, hostels and other services were established in three counties, namely Mid Glamorgan, South Glamorgan and Gwent. The organisation became the South Wales Council on Alcoholism. As the services in these areas grew they left the parent organisation. The first to leave became South Glamorgan Council on Alcoholism and in 1966 opened Dyfrig House, a hostel for homeless people with problem alcohol use. This hostel, believed to be the first in Wales, has been a place of refuge for hundreds of men, and more recently women' who, with great determination have struggled to find a way through the storm of their drinking, housing and social exclusion problems.
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Alun Emlyn Jones,
O.B.E., J.P.
Founding Secretary and current Chair and President of Pen yr Enfys
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Pold
Policy implementation is enthusiastically discussed
Service Users experience the delight of canoeing
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Eventually, partly due to changing attitudes, the organisation became South Glamorgan Council on Alcohol, a name it kept until 2004, when to a great fanfare we adopted the new name Pen yr Enfys.
Individuals who have made use of our services over the years feel that this new name reflects not only the way they feel, but also better describes an organization that has a proud tradition, and is ready for modern demands and pressures. As our Chair says, “The new name marks another stage in the continuing advancement of our services which now comprising a number of interconnecting units”. These are now divided into two distinct areas - services to individuals and services to businesses.
Services to Individuals
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Underpinning Philosophy To Our Work
Every individual person is unique and consequently we work with each individual differently. Equally an individual is a person not a problem or set of problems. For example a person is not an alcoholic; they are a person experiencing difficulties with their use of alcohol. They may also have other difficulties, sometimes unrecognised, and any or all of their difficulties may appear insurmountable but they are still a unique individual who has some problems and not to be defined by the problems themselves.
In essence we believe that any individual with difficulties and portraying problem behaviour has the potential to achieve positive change and make a contribution to society. Our dedicated and skilled staff work with these individuals in providing opportunities to make these changes and consequently improve their quality of life.
We believe that problem alcohol/substance use is often a socially learned behaviour which can be replaced by more positive behaviour and ways of thinking. For example we believe that:
- People use alcohol or other intoxicants for a reason, e.g. it is seen as socially, emotionally, psychologically or physically useful.
- Problems occur when drinking alcohol or using substances is relied upon to perform everyday functions
- Heavy drinking or problem substance use is learned behaviour
- The drinker or substance user is responsible for their actions
- When people stop or alter their behaviour it leaves a void in their life. They need to learn to do things to fill this void.
- Skills often have to be learned/relearned.
- Changing any habit is difficult and takes time. Therefore lapses can occur but should not be seen as back to square one. They should be treated as a slip from which lessons can be learnt.
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Preparing Sunday Dinner |
Our approaches towards supporting people making positive changes in their misusing behaviour are based upon the “Spiral of Change” (Prochaska and Di-Clemente). This cycle helps in understanding the processes that individuals go through in attempting to change their behaviour and further helps understand lapse and relapse. Basically we believe that once a person has made a decision to change behaviour they then have to decide what action to take in order to bring about and maintain change. Should they relapse their experiences will mean that, although they may appear to go backwards, they will not return to the starting point but to a different point from which they can build on positive experiences and try again. This they can do as many times as is necessary and in as many different ways as they wish.
Our role is to motivate people to move round the cycle both by encouraging understanding of problem behaviour and by helping them focus on the positive elements in their life, behaviours and/or new experiences. We accept lapse/relapse as a part of this process and treat it as a positive experience upon which new attempts and processes can be built.
How individuals wish to go about making such changes is their choice and we will support them in making such choices in an informed and safe a manner as possible. We will ensure individuals are informed and encouraged to make their own choices about both methods of changing behaviour and maintaining the changes and work with whatever way they choose to adopt. This will include the “12 steps approach”, abstinence, harm reduction and controlled drinking.
All of Pen yr Enfys projects will develop policies and procedures that recognise the nature of the way people change, learn, relapse, learn, change , lapse and so on, consequently these policies and procedures will be based upon accepting these cycles in peoples changing behaviour. Policies will therefore not be:
- Punitive
- Based on judgemental attitudes
- Authoritarian
- Based on one size fits all.
They will however recognise:
- Equitability
- Individuality
- That each individuals aims may be different.
- Service users views
- That some projects do need to be “dry” in nature.
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Service Users and Staff ready for a day out
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To Contact Us:
182a Cowbridge Road East
Canton
Cardiff
CF11 9NE
Tel: 029 2038 8715
Fax: 029 2038 8717
Email: admin@penyrenfys.org |
A one to one session
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