Holt Cottage Farm is a smallholding set in 4 acres of grounds located in the beautiful Warwickshire countryside in the Heart of England, away from everyday distractions providing a peaceful, safe and supportive setting.

The property has recently been extended and fully refurbished.

In 2008 I was involved in a project looking at the quality of service provision for addicts and alcoholics in Coventry and Warwickshire.

The conclusion of my mini-report back to the Drug and Alcohol Action Teams (DAATs) was that there was a lot of support available for people in addiction – but if it’d been a relay race, there were a lot of dropped batons (clients) when they were passed between organisations.

There was also a major shortfall in the support for family members, with nowhere to turn to for help and advice.

This motivated three of us in recovery to form ESH Works – which stands for Experience, Strength and Hope – a peer-led mutual support and user involvement organisation to support family members and help guide people through the complexities of recovery and the different services provided.

"There was a vision that one day we could run a totally peer-led professional residential rehab facility – not for any profit, but simply because it was the right thing to do."

We started in a small office in a local council ‘start-up’ enterprise hub, where we co-ordinated everything. When we first advertised the groups in some locations there would be no one there for the first month or more, until people started noticing the posters and leaflets that we’d dropped off at pharmacies and doctors surgeries.

I remember sitting in an empty room in at a community centre in Nuneaton one wet night, when two people came in. We’d been going to this room on the same night each week for nearly two months without anyone attending. We gave the couple a cuppa, talked through our experiences and the problems they were having with their son, and they went away saying we’d helped. As they continued to come back to our group we found out later that the husband was about to commit suicide the night they first came in, but had seen our leaflet that night in the doctor’s surgery and diverted to our group. That night changed his life and ours! They continued to attend the groups and volunteered with us for many years.

As this family support developed we had a moment of clarity and decided we should include an ex addict volunteer in long term recovery in each of our family groups. This was a revelation for our family members – they had a ‘tame addict’ to fire questions at, who didn’t pull the steel shutters down when asked about addiction. This approach is now recognised around the country as good practice, providing the volunteer is supported well in their own recovery so they’re not put at risk of the family discussions opening old wounds.

As a service user involvement organisation we also assisted in writing the service specification for Warwickshire’s new ‘integrated’ drug and alcohol services – and we stressed that the service had to be integrated to stop the ‘baton dropping’.

"We also suggested quite strongly that any service user involvement and peer led support should be outside the mainstream service to give it independence, credibility and a separate voice."

Winning a service user involvement contract gave us a little more stability in terms of regular income, and we took on staff to manage groups in four locations around the county. As our peer support activity continued to grow, we had to demonstrate that we were more than just a group of people in recovery helping each other. We needed to show that we kept our volunteers and staff safe, that we educated them and we looked after them. We looked around and decided to set up a formal peer mentoring programme based on the structured Mentoring and Befriending Foundation’s Approved Provider Standard (APS). It took about six months of hard work to pass the assessment, but we’ve been an approved provider for quite a few years now.

In 2013 Public Health England (NHS) were looking to expand residential treatment options and were offering funding to established organisations with a track record to establish residential support facilities. We won a capital grant to assist with the purchase a ‘clean house’. We took out a commercial loan with the bank and funded half ourselves, and we established the house alongside running our peer support activities in Warwickshire. The way we operated in the community was with structured day programmes in different locations around Warwickshire, including the family support.

The following year our user involvement contract was extended and we were secure for another couple of years.

In 2015 things started to move faster when we applied for another Public Health England (NHS) grant which again was targeting residential peer-led rehab projects – an absolute hand in glove situation for us. We already had the leading edge model of a small peer led facility designed support local residents and their families. When we were advised we’d been successful in the grant application our concept of opening a rehab wholly supported and managed by people in recovery was then very real.

It took six months of focussed effort to find the right location away from everyday distractions and then a further year to extend and refurbish the premises.

In 2017 we relinquished our community support responsibilities and moved the organisation along with all our experienced staff to the new location to operate the current rehab facility.

"Recovery is all about change for the person in addiction, and by assisting the families to understand and deal with their loved one's changing approach to life, we actually support their sustained recovery."

Our ESH Community structured residential treatment programme now incorporates 12-step awareness, physical activities, meditation, mindfulness, anger management and professional counselling sessions. We have also incorporated our established family education and awareness programme, which includes Adfam’s step approach.

We’ve moved a long way from starting as a small peer-led support organisation to operating an incredibly successful residential rehab – and I'm even more proud to say that it's all been achieved by people who themselves are in recovery.

Paul Urmston

CEO - ESH Works

CEO and Founder
Paul Urmston

We take our duty of care towards the health and well-being of both our residents and our staff extremely seriously. We have completed a thorough risk assessment of our environment.

Our updated COVID risk assessment is based on the latest government guidance and it has been significantly revised to ease the overhead on the operational requirements of the rehab whilst maintaining an effective admission process and treatment environment.

This current policy is based on the assumption that we will not be able to accept placements for residents who are in the highest risk category of becoming seriously ill from COVID.

This risk assessment has taken into consideration various aspects of resident risks including the benefits of an effective admission process, the participation in ESH Community’s programme including safe detoxification, our education programme and the aftercare we provide.

The impact of the COVID pandemic has changed over the years as more people have been vaccinated and new variants of the virus have emerged with potentially less severe symptoms. We have also gained more awareness and experience of managing COVID in our environment.

We continue to review the best practice approaches that describe how to operate a residential rehabilitation facility safely in the current environment to be able to meet the latest Government Guidelines.

We have reflected on our own experience and we believe we have taken a safe and robust approach above what the Government currently recommend.

The additional measures we are taking have been integrated into our day to day practices and procedures to manage the rehab through the ongoing pandemic situation.

Resident Admission Process

• Following initial engagement with ESH Community, potential residents and the families are invited to attend a Pre-Admission Assessment.
• Pre-admission and admission sessions are held in our dedicated Admissions Office away from the main residence.
• The pre-admission meeting focusses on some COVID related checks to ensure the potential resident is not in the highest risk category of becoming seriously ill from COVID these include:
  • Checking for any COVID/Flu/Cold symptoms in the last 14 days
  • Assessing the potential resident’s current COVID vaccination status, potential residents not fully vaccinated will be individually risk assessed
  • Assessment of any pre-existing physical health conditions, for example respiratory problems or serious liver disease which would put them in the highest risk category of becoming seriously ill from COVID
• On the day of admission COVID LFD tests are completed by the resident and family members or friends who have travelled in the same vehicle on the admission day.
• Assuming the LFD tests for family and the resident and resident health checks do not highlight any potential COVID issues the admission can proceed.

Resident/Staff Health Care 

• Residents undertake a COVID Lateral Flow Test on entry
• Daily health checks are performed for residents who are having a formal detox, for the period of the detox, this includes blood pressure, heart rate, SPo2 and temp readings to monitor general health.

 PPE

• Our general approach to PPE is that it is not required in our regular day to day activities as the nature, efficacy and quality of the services we deliver would be detrimentally impacted if PPE was used in our day to day interactions with residents

Physical Wellbeing Programme

• Our physical wellbeing programme activities, TaiChi, Yoga and cardio exercise sessions take place on-site to minimise external contact
• Residents and staff follow the current COVID guidelines when they participate in any physical activities away from our main location including regular country walks.

Fellowship Meetings

• We will continue to engage with external support organisations because of their importance to the longer term support they can provide to a successful recovery.

 Deliveries and Visitor/Contractors

• Contractors requiring access to main residence are asked if they have any symptoms

 Staff Training

• This COVID Secure Risk Assessment shared and discussed with all staff.
• Information on how and when to use PPE
• Process for resident admission LFD testing 

Updated 14/10/23

We are an independent not-for-profit drug and alcohol addiction rehab centre supported by Public Health England (NHS) to establish and provide our leading edge addiction treatment services.

The organisation is not commercially driven so we are able to offer our drug and alcohol residential addiction treatment at competitive prices.

We have been providing drug and alcohol support for over a decade to people with addiction problems and their families.

Recovery from the problems of alcohol, drugs and addiction is not something you can do alone, it's something that requires support from others, it's a problem that the whole community can support and help with so we work with selected and trusted partners to provide the best support possible for our residents.

We're NOT commercial, we're small, we care and our professional staff get people well!

Our addiction treatment centre is situated in the West Midlands among Warwickshire’s rolling hills and countryside in a rural location within easy travelling distance from Birmingham, Coventry, Rugby, Banbury, Daventry, Leamington Spa, Warwick, Nuneaton, Solihull, Stratford-upon-Avon and the nearby county towns of Leicester, Northampton, and Oxford.

Trusted partnerships with people and organisations

We work in partnership with Public Health England who have supported the organisation at a country level and also locally in Warwickshire to establish and deliver our leading residential treatment services.

We provide ongoing input to Public Health England at a country level to help improve and develop addiction treatment services in the UK promoting our successful approach based on smaller localised recovery communities where residents are supported by professionals who have their own personal experience of addiction.

Our service is Care Quality Commission rated and we work in partnership with other service providers countrywide to help us provide the best possible service for our residents, their families and friends.

Click for our latest CQC report rating us GOOD in all categories...

We've been successful in winning a grant from the National Lottery Community Fund scheme which supported the project over the first two years we were established. We've also received further grants from the Lottery Community Fund recently to develop and improve our facilities to ensure we are COVID secure.  

The Heart of England Community Foundation have supported the project with a grant to improve the admission facilities to provide a safe and COVID secure environment for our residents.

Regaining physical fitness in a structured and safe fashion is a crucial part of our recovery programme. We have a qualified personal trainer and fitness and instructor (Matt) who delivers on-site sessions to develop our residents' physical fitness and support them as part of our overall recovery and well-being programme.

To improve the overall well-being support we provide to our residents we've partnered with a local and highly experienced Yoga teacher who provides the yoga sessions on site at our location. Karen teaches all levels to suit everyone from beginners upwards.

We have extended the holistic support we provide for our residents to include Tai Chi exercise each week on site at our location. Our instructor (Mats) is from the British Tai Chi Academy who are based locally in Leamington Spa.  

The Police and Crime Commissioner of Warwickshire has supporting the project providing a grant to incorporate a dedicated counselling and support annex in the centre.

The Fulcrum Recovery Project supports people in making the transition from early to on-going recovery.

• Is your environment going to be safe after treatment?
• Do you think you might need some extra help maintaining abstinence?
• Have you considered living in a shared recovery house?

Fulcrum provide a supported abstinent based living environment designed to assist residents through the early stages of recovery.

We are a local partner in the Warwickshire Pathways drug and alcohol framework of services working in partnership and alongside other local drug and alcohol organisations to provide our residential treatment and rehab support.

Other local organisations in the partnership are Change Grow Live (CGL) and Compass

Other community organisations, market leading brands and smaller local companies have also made the ESH Community residential rehab project possible by providing donations of goods and services or giving significant discounts.

Tesco, Carpetright, Western Power, Bluebell Blinds, Bensons for Beds, Rotary Club of Stratford upon Avon, Rohan and Renault Leicester are just some of the organisations, however, there are several other companies who gave significant contributions who want to remain anonymous.