Archive:

Thurrock Street Drinkers Insight Report

We are just starting an exciting project with Thurrock Council to generate insights into street drinkers

Portman Group

We have just started some analysis work with the Portman Group

DUST 2 has arrived

We have reviewed and refreshed our Drug Use Scrrening Tool (DUST) that is used in many areas across the country. New features include:

TONIC are now working closely with Gencia

Article on our work on SPARK

New contract for Health Needs Assessment in Cheshire

New contract with the Innovation Unit

New Project for Essex County Council

New Project for Swale District Council

New Partnership with KSL

KSL is a social enterprise, a company with a community purpose. It is what they do with profits that counts - we reinvest them to sustain our social objectives.
KSL's main objectives are to carry out activities that benefit the community, in particular providing knowledge, support and learning for care, health and wellbeing services in the United Kingdom. They produce cost effective, creative, positive and interactive events and training for public services.

KSL's regular activities include, designing and delivering professional events, from large conferences to smaller workshops and seminars. They also implement bespoke training opportunities, coaching adults to provide initial support to young people experiencing mental health problems. They manage contracts and projects through effective partnerships, and also manage bids, tender documentation and stakeholder engagement. These activities are funded through client payments and grants.

The Children's Society gives us a good write up

The Children’s Society commissioned TONIC Consultants in October 2010 to support us in the development of a Soft Outcomes Tool and Clinical Governance Framework to support both our existing specialist drug and alcohol services for young people as well as our development of this practice nationally. Matthew and Simon at TONIC have worked with us to design a clinical governance framework that will support the effective delivery of our services by ensuring treatment is of high quality, effective and supported by clinical safeguards, now expected by commissioning bodies.

As consultants they have worked intensively with our staff to undertake a comprehensive clinical audit of our current services including a full and detailed review of policies, procedures and systems, as appropriate. I have been consistently impressed by their expertise, professionalism, and time management skills, delivering a realistic work plan and remaining on target throughout their engagement with us. Their integrity and passion for what they do has also impressed me and throughout the project they have been genuinely interested in better outcomes for some of the most vulnerable young people and their families with whom we engage, as a national children’s charity. The final report/working document is of an exceptional standard and I am confident that its implementation will make a lasting difference to the quality of specialist substance misuse services we provide to young people and their families.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank both Matthew and Simon for an exceptional level of service and would recommend their consultancy firm to any organisation that requires innovation, creativity, value for money, expertise and professionalism.

Tracey Thompson
Assistant Director – Business Development Unit
The Children’s Society
June 2011

ESSEXFAMILY publishes our analysis

We contribute policy advice to JRF report

TONIC brings in £1.1m to Essex

Matt Hennessey brings wealth of experience as new associate

Matt is a strategist and business change executive with particular expertise in transforming strategy into delivery in respect of the health and criminal justice agenda. Nationally recognised authority in the field of drugs and alcohol and UK representative to the World Health Organisation.

As Head of National Support Team for Public Health (Alcohol Harm Reduction) for the Department of Health with responsibility for the design, development and delivery of a £9m programme of diagnostic visits and follow up support packages to Local Strategic Partnerships regarding Public Health and Community Safety aspects of Alcohol Harm Reduction. This includes personally providing bespoke advice and strategic coaching to Chief Officers and Directors (NHS, Local Authority, Police, Third Sector) on implementing NHS reform. He has delivered 38 week-long visits, personally working with almost 1500 stakeholders, including 64 Chief Officers in every region across England. The team comprises contracted experts including Hospital Consultants, GPs, Senior Police Officers and Local Authority and NHS Directors.  He also provides expert advice as a member of whitehall policy and delivery Boards

Prior to moving to the Department of Health he was the Regional Strategy Manager with Government Office for the North West where, he was the principle cross government negotiator of targets for 5 Local Authorities in the NW and also responsible for implementing and managing the delivery of the Preventing Violent Extremism, Drug and Alcohol Programmes.

Matt has also worked at the frontline in both Health and Criminal Justice settings, first as a Probation Liaison and Drug Worker and then as a Forensic Psychologist within the Prison.

His publications include:

Risky Drinking in NW School Children and its Consequences: Hughes, Bellis et al – 2008. Liverpool John Moores University

World Health Organisation: Global Campaign for Violence Prevention Fact Sheets www.who.int/violenceprevention

The Training Effect @ Tonic Consultants

Report for Alcohol Concern launched at House of Lords

Our report for Alcohol Concern on investing in alcohol treatment as the number one public health priority has been launched today at the House of Lords.  You can read it here: www.alcoholconcern.org.uk The report was given excellent feedback by MPs and the Minister for Public Health, and good newspaper coverage.

Download our alcohol treatment report

TONIC Chair Conference on Parental Alcohol Misuse

Delivery of Mental Health First Aid Training

Home Office publishes our analysis of consultation responses

Click here to see our analysis documents published today as part of the Police Reform and Securities Bill

Report published on Strengthening Complex Families in Essex

Today we have published a report on Strengthening Complex Families in Essex, with a focus on children whose parents have problems with drugs, alcohol, mental health, offending or domestic abuse. 

Key recommendations from the report include:
Conduct an exercise to identify the top 400-600 complex families and estimate the cost to Essex services of dealing with them
Ensure better join up of services for children and adults through adopting a joint working protocol for complex families
Pool training and communication resources across agencies on issues relating to parental problems such as substance misuse, mental health, offending and domestic violence
Consider adopting one of the strengthening complex families programmes that has demonstrated cost savings, improved family outcomes and better safeguarding of children in other areas

This report has been endorsed in principle by the Essex Safeguarding Children's Board, therefore the findings and recommendations can be taken forward within the constraints of available resources. The project team will continue to work with partners to further understand and develop the recommendations to ensure that an achievable response can be made to these very vulnerable families. The report is due to go to the Essex Safeguarding Adult Board before the end of this calendar year.

NEW PARTNERS: The Training Effect

We are now partners with The Training Effect...watch this space

A range of drug, alcohol, mental health, sexual health training programmes delivered by trainers with frontline expertise

Conference on Complex Families

Today we ran a conference for over 200 people on developing strengthening complex families approaches. You can download presentations from DfE, Matthew Scott, Family Recovery Project, Families First and M-PACT. 95% rated the presentations as "Good" or "Excellent".

Evaluation of Child's Best Friend

We have just begun a 1 year research evaluation of the Child's Best Friend project, based on Pet Therapy evidence

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY ABOUT TONIC

MARK COOPER, DEPUTY HEAD OF THE ALCOHOL STRATEGY UNIT, HOME OFFICE

For the last 14 months, Matthew has worked for the Home Office to deliver a new mandatory code for alcohol retailers. He has been involved at all stages from project management, developing and delivering a large scale consultation exercise, briefing ministers and developing new legislation.

This has been a high profile and highly contentious area of work and Matthew has skilfully handled a range of differing views from a number of Government Departments as well as a wide range of non-Governmental stakeholders representing all sides of the argument.

Matthew has always demonstrated an ability to bring all required work in on time and to an excellent standard – often in challenging circumstances and to short deadlines. Matthew has worked extremely well with the existing team and I have been very satisfied by all of his work, which was successfully completed in April when the new legislation took effect. It has been a pleasure to work with Matthew and I would not hesitate to recommend him for any future work.

SALLY HILLS, COMMISSIONING MANAGER, ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL

Essex Young People's Joint Commissioning Group commissioned Tonic Consultants in 2009 to undertake a research project around young people's dual diagnosis needs and to produce a set of recommendations that would inform future commissioning decisions within CAMHS services. Matthew Scott and his colleagues at Tonic were always focused and professional in their approach to the project, they developed a realistic work plan to fit the project timeframe and would regularly confirm that the project direction continued to be satisfactory.

The team engaged with all partners including young people & practitioners in a creative and flexible way, facilitating focus groups, attending formal meetings and designing on-line surveys. The team produced a highly professional and high quality end product that continues to be used by the partnership to inform decisions and needs assessments. Tonic have also delivered 16 days multi-agency training on Hidden Harm across the partnership. The feedback I have received has been extremely positive, with comments about the professionalism and knowledgeable approach of the trainer and also that although the subject is serious the day was really enjoyable and engaging. I would not hesitate to recommend Tonic Consultants for future work as the team are highly motivated, trustworthy and professional that can be left to deliver a high quality product.

CHRIS FLUSKEY, MANAGER, HARLOW EDUCATION CONSORTIUM

As Manager of the Harlow Education Consortium, an incorporated partnership of all 40 schools in the town of Harlow, with links to Harlow College (the main post 16 provider) and the Harlow Childrenʼs Centre Network (6 original Sure Start Centres), I have worked closely in the last year with TONIC on two successful applications / bids to the DCSF – one a Targeted Mental Health in Schools pilot (value £220k) and one a Child Poverty / Improving Support for Separating Parents (value £450k).

My Management Board and I think very highly of the quality of work TONIC undertook in regard to both applications. It is relatively easy to find consultancy which is adept at bid writing, but what TONIC were able to offer was a high level of expertise in the relevant fields and the ability to carry out in-depth research thoroughly and efficiently and make detailed recommendations. I always found TONIC willing to react quickly, to keep constantly in touch and to have high professional standards. Towards deadline times, they frequently went the extra mile, working late into the night and at weekends to complete tasks.

Besides having high professional standards, I also formed the view that TONIC actually cared about the ʻproductʼ i.e. they genuinely werenʼt just interested in completing the commission well but wanting to ensure that the eventual implementation would have positive impact on children, young people and their families. From the point of view of someone whose background has been 35 years in teaching and the last 20 years as a Secondary School Headteacher, it was pleasing to work with consultants who, in my view, had a genuine interest in improving life chances for the most vulnerable and at risk young people in society.

My organisation recommends TONIC unreservedly to any public, private and voluntary organisations seeking professional consultancy support.

JANE HARPER-SMITH, DIRECTOR OF COMMISSIONING, ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL

On behalf of everyone please can I thank you and your team for a great piece of work. We are delighted with the final report and now await with anticipation the outcome. Either way this will be a very useful document to inform future commissioning decisions.

ROSS CAWS, COMMISSIONING MANAGER, WARWICKSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

I am writing to thank Tonic for the consultation with young people that you conducted, and the resulting report.  Al the project objectives have been met and the recommendations provide a clear direction for improving the young person’s substance misuse service.  The recommendations provide low-cost solutions to the barriers identified. These range from profile changes that can be achieve quickly (e.g. website presence), to longer term changes to the service model. 

I am grateful for the wide-ranging analysis of issues, including the marketing of the service, service processes, current performance and the joint working with other services supporting young people.  We are very pleased with the qualitative feedback provided by 64 young people and are confident of the conclusions drawn.  The report has been written to a high standard, with each main findings clearly evidenced and linked to a recommendation and expected outcome.  All recommendations in this report will be addressed.  

Overall, I am grateful for the professionalism with which the consultation has been carried out and the quality of the final report. I am confident that if we implement the recommendations we will further improve our services for young people in Warwickshire.

ANDREW BROWN, DRUG EDUCATION FORUM & MENTOR UK

The Drug Education Forum found working with Tonic a stimulating and fruitful experience.  Our mutual expertise in the field added real depth to the outcome of our work.

We were impressed by the way that Tonic was able to respond as the project developed.  And we were grateful to Matthew and Tim for coming to a seminar we organised to discuss the findings from their research.

Speaking at Alcohol Conference

Cornwall CAMHS development work

New licensing conditions for alcohol retailers

New licensing conditions came into force today as part of the mandatory code for alcohol retailers. This is accompanied by 2 new pieces of guidance.

Click here for the guidance on the conditions: http://www.alcoholconcern.org.uk/assets/files/New%20mandatory%20licensing%20conditions%20-%20Home%20Office%20April%202010.pdf

Consulting with young people in Warwickshire

We have begun our consultation with young people in Warwickshire about substance misuse. This work will inform future commissioning and service development.

Mandatory Alcohol Code published

Home Office has published the response to the consultation on the mandatory code for alcohol retailers. Tonic were involved in delivering this project. For the full reports published, follow this link

250 people complete our Drug Strategy Survey

Our Drug Strategy Survey has now closed

Tonic unveils Drug Education Navigation Tool

Yesterday saw the Drug Education Forum hold the first of three seminars we're organising focusing on contemporary issues for drug education.

Tonic to present at DEF conference

Matthew Scott and Dr Tim Legrand will give a presentation of our work for the Drug Education Forum on developing a new resource for those delivering drug education. We will also publish our research findings following our review of the evidence base.  The conference is on the 16th November at the University of London and is free. For more details and to book a place click here

Alcohol article in Home Office magazine

Matthew Scott has an article about alcohol policy in the Home Office magazine, which can be viewed online here click here

26,000 respond to youth alcohol guidance consultation

The consultation on the DCSF youth alcohol guidance, which contained the Chief Medical Officer's advice, received more than 26,000 responses across the different strands of the consultation. The analysis of those responses can be found if you click here

A new resource for drug education

We have just started working with the Drug Education Forum to develop a resource for frontline practitioners and a summary of the evidence of what works in drug and alcohol education.  We will be presenting the findings at a conference later in the year.

Alcohol consultation gets more than 7,000 responses

Our work for the Home Office on their consultation on the code of practice for alcohol retailers, which recently closed on the 14th August 2009, generated more than 7,000 responses across a range of consultation methods.

Successful child poverty bid wins £0.5m

Our recent work on the child poverty bid for Essex County Council has successfully won them almost £½million for a pilot project in Harlow that will work with separating parents offering a range of intensive support, advice and advocacy.