Philip is an 18 year old male from Canberra. Phillip completed PALM in 2019, at the age of 16. After that time, Phillip was linked to the Street University where he participated in counselling for about 2 months.

Things were going well for Phillip, and he was in contact with the CALM staff every 3 to 4 weeks. He was attending school most days and his AOD use was limited to parties and occasional use.

In September 2020, Phillp began to struggle with his mental health. His relationship had broken down and he was finding it hard to keep up with his school work. He started to use cannabis again to help him sleep but it began to creep more into his daily life. During the monthly catch up with CALM Phillip talked about his growing worry that things were getting out of hand. The CALM staff stepped up the frequency of contact with Phillip, having one face to face session per week plus a number of phone calls throughout the week.

The CALM staff worked with Phillip to reset the goals on his action plan, and updated his relapse prevention plan. The staff also called a case conference with Phillip’s school coordinator and his mum. From this, the school was able to put in additional support to assist him and Phillip was able to talk to his mum about what was going on for him.

After about 2 months, the frequency of contact reduced as Phillip was able to regain control over his daily life. Phillip is now back to monthly check-ins and reports that his drug use is back under control.