Last month, we started Blended Service Delivery, which allowed Outside Edge service users to participate in four of our weekly recovery maintenance support sessions either on Zoom or in-person. Following the government’s announcement over the weekend, we know that many in our community have questions about how they will continue to connect with Outside Edge during the next month. At this point, we can confirm that all of our activities, including blended sessions, will go ahead as planned through Wednesday, November 4th. 

During this challenging time, the physical and mental health of our service users, staff and the wider community is of utmost concern to us. The latest government guidelines make an allowance for formally organised support groups that provide mutual aid, or any other form of support, for people in drug and alcohol recovery to remain open with up to 15 participants. Therefore, we have worked with our partners in Public Health and venue delivery partners to ensure that we will be able to continue offering Covid-safe, socially distanced in-person activities throughout the upcoming period of lockdown from November 5th to December 4th. 

Although we will be able to continue to offer this essential service for some service users, we strongly encourage as many people as possible to access Outside Edge activities from their homes. To that end, we will continue to make sure that all of our activities are accessible online and over the phone, as we have done over the past 8 months. If any of this information changes over the next month, then current service users will be contacted via email and SMS with updated details. New service users and friends of OETC should continue to check our website and social media for updates as the situation evolves.