FREMANTLE’S Palmerston Association is marking 10 years as an integrated service that provides a range of support for those seeking help for problematic drug and alcohol use.

Manager Bram Dickens was involved in the move, which combined the non-government Palmerston service with those of the WA government’s Next Step, to form the South Metro Community Alcohol and Drug Service.

“We like to call it a one stop shop, bringing together counselling and medico therapy,” he says.

Instead of clients seeing the two separately, requiring a paper trail of referrals, causing delays and frustration, they share a Fremantle office.

“When I have a client in need of medical intervention I can just walk across the hall and start the process,” Palmerston’s clinical coordinator Gareth Griffiths says.

“The counsellors and medical staff such as doctors and nurses work together in the best interests of the clients,” Mr Dickens says.

An office on the third floor of an office block opposite St John’s church was the perfect location for the combined service, offering anonymity as clients mix with people attending other businesses in the building. There’s a range of counselling services, all of them free, from one-on-one, single session therapy, family counselling, and the SMART Recovery program (Self Management Recovery Training).

“The SMART group is a secular alternative to the well known AA. It’s based on short term goals–which achieve long term ones,” Mr Griffiths says.

It’s an informal program that people can drop in and out of: “You don’t have to be a client of the service to attend…it’s an open group,” Mr Griffiths says.

Palmerston’s diversion program aims to keep people out of gaol, with police able to refer minor offenders.

Formerly a court diversion staffer Mr Griffiths says he’s seen firsthand lives ruined by a criminal record for a minor drug offence and is a strong supporter of the diversion programs.

“I had people planning to be lawyers, teachers, nurses, unable to follow that career due to drug related criminal records.”

Palmerston has been going for 30 years.

For more information and for session times call 9430 5966.

by JENNY D’ANGER