A WOMAN has been praised by the Wells Community for her work in helping others recover drug addiction and was named as employee of the month.

Hayley Wakeman, who was born in Lancaster but now resides in Hest Bank near Carnforth, has worked with the community support group since October last year.

This month the Wells Community has named Hayley as employee of the month over her outstanding work helping those in the community who are overcoming addiction.

Part of her job is to ensure that clients who once struggled with addiction and kept 'on script' as they progress in their treatment.

She explained: "My job title is 'reach engagement worker'. I work with a team of three other ladies and we all cover different areas.

"I cover Morecambe and St Ann’s, while another lady covers Lancaster and Fleetwood, while another covers Preston and then Chorley.

"We work closely with the CGL who send us referrals of clients who need help. Our job is to keep them on script with their recovery.

"The script means keeping them on their treatment plan which includes methadone which helps recovering from addiction and goes a long way in counteracting the withdrawal symptoms.

"The aim of it all is to save lives.

"Over time we work with them as much as we can and hope we can help them on their way to fully recovering.

"Over the time we've worked together we must have been responsible for about 60 people so far. We hope to make it 60 more.

"We have a few who are off and on but we always do what we can for them.

"The old pathway I used to do was where we'd help people in their daily lives, get them through detox, set up women's refuges, make doctors’ appointments and help people get into food banks.

"But the last few months has seen my role has changed to re-engagement to get people back onto script. I've dealt with about fourteen people in the last two months.

"The Wells is a great job to have and they're an amazing organisation. They do so much for so many and are constantly working to expand to help more."