Family Support Service

At Ballyfermot Advance Project we deliver the 5-Step Method, a brief psychosocial intervention. Some key elements of the 5 Step Method bring together the common experiences of how difficult it is to live with a person misusing substances, the user having disruptive impacts on their lives and how this can affect the family member’s physical and mental health. It helps consider how harms to individuals and families can be reduced. The 5-Step Method is an evidence-based, non-pathologising, brief, psycho-social intervention which works with family members in their own right.

Benefits of the 5-Step Method
1. This intervention is focused on affected and concerned family members. The 5-Step Method is clearly focused on the family member themselves, not on who is affected by the substance misuse of another relative.
2. This method takes the view of family members as ordinary people attempting to respond to highly stressful experiences. The 5-Step Method does not see the family member as a cause or a significant contributor to the development of the addiction problem, but as an ordinary person facing a challenging problem. The method is very flexible and adaptable to a range of settings and circumstances.