[Occupational rehabilitation of former drug addicts--experiences of the Isney Stephanuswerk].

Rehabilitees who have completed substance withdrawal treatment are among the special target groups for vocational rehabilitation measures. It in particular is at the transition from the primarily medically focussed phase of substance withdrawal treatment into the phase of vocational rehabilitation that this population has to cope with substantial adjustment problems, with the consequence of frequent, and occasionally massive, relapse into substance abuse, and hence not only temporary interruption of the vocational rehabilitation measure. From the long years of experience in working with this population at the Stephanuswerk Isny rehabilitation centre, an absolute need has emerged to offer particularly intensive social-educational and psychological follow-along supports during the phase of vocational rehabilitation. In response to these insights, cause-oriented action strategies have been devised seeking to prevent relapse among ex-dependent rehabilitees and/or assist them in their efforts to cope, in order to avoid drop-outs from the vocational rehabilitation programme, with all the adverse consequences this would imply. These action strategies inter alia included drafting a catalogue of criteria applicable before client admission to the programme, as well as a catalogue of relapse-prevention measures during vocational rehabilitation. The core element of relapse prevention had been creating a prevention-focussed self-help group project, which, in terms of structure and concept, turned out a crucial stabilizing factor for relapse prevention or coping in rehabilitees at risk.