Who we are

who-we-are

Aquarius Life is the workplace support service delivered by Aquarius, a specialist behavioural change charity with over forty years’ experience helping people overcome the harms caused by mental ill health, alcohol, drugs and gambling.

At Aquarius we have a long history of delivering innovative, evidence-based, responsive services to communities.

We share the vision that individuals, families and communities should have the opportunity to lead full and empowered lives free from the negative influences of alcohol, drugs and gambling. From the moment we were established in 1977 as part of a Birmingham University research project, we’ve been working to find solutions that work in people’s real lives.

Aquarius Life

In 2014, Aquarius Life was born through a partnership with a large automotive organisation where we provided specialist support to people in employment.

As a result of this partnership, we noticed the prevalence of these issues for people that are in work. We also recognised that very little specialist support is offered by organisations to help people cope with these issues, stay employed and ultimately lead healthy lives (also supported by data that suggests over 80% of people with alcohol issues don’t access local treatment services and over 70% of people experiencing substance use issues are in employment – Public Health England).

evidence-based

Our mission

Aquarius Life is a social enterprise that applies commercial approaches to deliver on the Aquarius core charitable objectives.

The goal of the service is to provide tailored programmes that help to prevent and overcome the harms caused by alcohol, drugs and gambling through the delivery of cost-effective specialist services.

For Aquarius we aim to;

  • Improve access to our existing services.
  • Reach people that might not access our existing services.
  • Use education as a preventative approach.
  • Provide alternative income streams to core funding.

We provide;

Policy support and consultancy

Training, workshops and webinars

Support sessions

Through delivery of our services we;

  • Raise awareness of the dangers related to alcohol, drug and gambling issues in the workplace.
  • Encourage and enable employers to recognise the challenges behind the issues and take positive, practical steps to support valued employees and team members.
  • Reduce the stigma attached to these issues and encourage / enable people to come forward for support.
  • Provide education to help prevent issues from arising.
  • Use 1:1 support to help people understand their behaviours and find alternative ways to cope.
  • Prevent financial loss to employers by addressing issues.
  • Reinvest any surplus income from the service into in our charitable community services
  • Support your organisation in achieving its corporate social responsibility commitments.

Inspiring individuals

Aquarius is a founding partner of Recovery Focus, an expert group of charities inspiring recovery together in the fields of mental health, drug, alcohol and gambling support, and domestic violence.

As a charity, all income made by Aquarius Life goes directly back into Aquarius’ charitable services, allowing us to support more people on their recovery journeys.

about-recovery-focus

Policy and strategy

We write and implement alcohol, drug and health and wellbeing strategies and policies.

Training delivery

We deliver skills training and awareness programmes.

Support sessions

We provide on and off site 1:1 and group psychological support.

“The service provided invaluable support to me at a low point in my life and through valuable support enabled me to make a full, total recovery and also gave me the tools to help others.  The substance misuse service saves lives and without doubt should continue to do so. Many thanks to Aquarius and all at Occupational Health”

Ops DirectorBirmingham Associates