A day in the life….Emilia Shumur, NORCAS substance misuse migrant link worker.
Posted on | March 30, 2010 | No Comments
Emilia joined NORCAS in 2007 as an outreach worker to the migrant community in the Great Yarmouth area. Her appointment followed a research project into why there were low levels of the migrant community accessing NORCAS services in the town.
It was discovered that there were a number of barriers to foreign nationals living in the area accessing support services. Often it was because there was low awareness of what was available; the local press is not widely read by these groups and they may not be referred through the usual channels. There were also the more obvious difficulties with language and culture and that socially, migrant individuals often suffer higher levels of prejudice surrounding their addictive behaviour than British citizens.
With Emilia’s appointment, NORCAS set about overcoming these obstacles and greatly improving accessibility for this group. In order to set up the programme, Emilia visited GPs in the area and spoke at practice meetings to introduce the new service and invited them to participate in the report.
Regular surgeries are now held off site at venues such as GP practices and the Salvation Army, to offer people a neutral ground on which to meet. A new surgery will also soon launch at the Nelson Medical Centre in Great Yarmouth as this has been identified as having the highest number of foreign patients. Information was also supplied to the specialist newspapers targeting the migrant communities. Word of mouth has also been very important.
Emilia’s day to day role revolves around the many aspects of helping the migrant community engage with NORCAS services, as well as regular involvement with their treatment programmes. She will often spend more time with each client than is typical with the charity’s British clients, because as well as their treatment itself, Emilia will often arrange and accompany a client to act as an interpreter when visiting welfare rights advisors, or to collect prescriptions. Emilia speaks Portuguese and Spanish, but works with service users from many nationalities including Slovakian, Polish, Lithuanian and Moroccan, enlisting the help of another interpreter where necessary.
Emilia says, “Demand for the service has grown significantly over the last three years and there is definitely an increasing need, as we are now nearly always at full capacity. Clients from the migrant community are often much more vulnerable even than our other service users and often require more time spent with them, especially at first. Prior to working for NORCAS I worked for the police in Great Yarmouth, so I went from enforcement to treatment! My role is very rewarding; to see people progress and help them improve their lives. I am proud of the fact that my work helps to offer equality of access to our services and helps to create a more positive society by hopefully reducing crime levels and helping clients enter employment, or gain better jobs.”
The NORCAS migrant outreach scheme is understood to be the only scheme of its nature in the area. NORCAS also runs a similar programme in Thetford.
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