Pathways to Employment: supporting people with lived and living experience of substance use in to work
This toolkit brings together best practice and support into one place to provide employers and employment support providers advice on how to attract, recruit and support staff with lived experience of substance use.
Employees and their lived experience
Benefits of employing people with lived experience
People with lived experience can offer unique insights into substance use challenges, enhancing service delivery and providing hope to those engaging with services. In Scotland, people with lived experience have been instrumental in shaping and implementing substance use policies and services.
Will people want to share their lived experience?
An employee should not be required to disclose their experience if this is not expected within their role. Some people with lived experience may wish to avoid any labels relating to their substance use and may want to avoid disclosing their experience.
For any role that you are looking to recruit for, it is important to be clear about whether the prospective employee would be required to share their experience for the role.
What does a typical employment journey look like?
There is no set path into employment, many routes exist. The diagram below sets out some of the options available.
Recovery and the Employment Journey
- Person with lived experience of substance use
- Support, treatment, or recovery services support person into volunteering
- Employability partner provides advice to person
- Person participates in volunteering opportunity, gaining essential skills and confidence
- Training or development programme provides training, education and work experience
- Person transitions into part-time employment, gaining work experience to support the transition to full-time employment
- Person transitions into full-time employment using their experience to develop their career, help others and improve services