Independence Initiative

Since 1996 worked with 1,500 referrals Over 300 gone on to further education or training Over 100 gone on to jobs Relapse avoided by 95% of active clients Catchment area grown from south Sefton to whole of Merseyside

That figure, he believes, makes it one of the most successful rehab centres in the country.

"We think our success isn't down to anything special, there's no magic formula, but for us what makes the difference is one-on-one work with individuals," Mr Roberts told BBC News Online.

Throughout the varied programme offered to help substance misusers, traditional group work is eschewed in favour of face-to-face involvement at every stage.

Mr Roberts believes this makes people far more likely to stay the course, avoid relapse and eventually find the job, education or training that many have never had.

Action plan

The Independence Initiative only takes on people referred to it by key workers such as GPs or community drug teams, which include probation officers and psychiatric nurses.

An action plan is drawn up for each person covering short, medium and long term goals.

If a long term aim is to get a degree, for example, it will be broken down to identify immediate things that can be achieved quickly such as improving literacy.

Initiative funding

Set up under City Challenge project with two years of state funding Current annual budget �650,000 Cash sources now include health, social and probation services, expanding horizons, HAZ and arrest referral scheme All matched with EU social funding

Social skills are worked on with a scheme called "befriendermentoring".

As part of the scheme staff act like friends in activities such as going to the cinema or pool hall or, if they are agoraphobics, simply visiting them at home.

A key aim is to help recovering addicts avoid situations with potential for relapsing, particularly contact with friends or family who misuse drugs.

That can be one of the hardest parts of the centre's work.

"It's very difficult to break with all of our past," said Mr Roberts.

"It's a bit like getting a new identity with the CIA or something, but sometimes that's necessary and that's what we have to ask them to do."

Sleep teaching

To help recovering addicts relax and to keep their minds occupied complementary treatments such as aromatherapy, tai-chi and music coaching are offered alongside more traditional counselling.

Teaching people how to sleep normally is often another important task. Practical skills such as literacy, numeracy, music, DIY and technology are also on offer.

"It's a whole range of strategies to help them live in the mainstream world with the rest of us because many of them have been outside that mainstream world for a decade or two," said Mr Roberts.

"The aim is to help them fill time with something and also to give them aspirations and skills to help them move into the mainstream, to get them into college or thinking of themselves as workers - often for the first time."

Variety of abuse

Addicts come to them from every background.

Some have degrees, others never completed school. Some have mis-used everything from alcohol to glue to prescription drugs to 'street' drugs like cocaine and heroin, others have only been exposed to one.

This is another reason why the Independence Initiative works one-to-one: all those referred to it have little in common beyond substance mis-use.

But, Mr Roberts stresses, there is one thing they do share.

"They're all nice people at the end of the day. Once you take them out of the context of why they've come to us they're just like you and me."