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CKU began its activities on May 30, 2009 in the church crypt at St. Audoen’s, which was made available by the Polish Chaplaincy. It was a response to the needs of Poles and their families struggling with addiction, whose barrier in seeking help was the lack of knowledge of English.
Initially, it was a pilot project in the field of counseling, consultations and emergency assistance. However, the large number of clients and their various needs in the field of mental health influenced the transformation of our project into professional psychological and psychotherapeutic help.
Year by year, the organization developed and expanded its offer. In 2010, the organization was registered as the Centre for Addiction Counselling - non-profit reg. 485287, and in February 2012 we received the status of a charitable organization - CHY 19490.
A breakthrough moment in the development of the organization was a meeting in 2010 with the coordinator of the South Inner City Drug Task Force, Colm Browne, who took an interest in our project and, seeing the difficult local conditions in which we worked, arranged a meeting with the director of the Coolmine Therapeutic Community, Paul Conlon, who invited us to cooperate, which resulted in moving our headquarters to Coolmine House in 2011. At the same time, we established cooperation in the substantive scope of work with the client with well-known specialists in Poland - with Dr. Bohdan T. Woronowicz, MD, who became our supervisor and directed us towards partnership with the AA community, with Dr. Ewa Woydyłło and with Grażyna Płachcińska, MA.
Systematic professional development, activity in expanding individual competences, readiness to analyse the work of therapeutic team members is crucial for maintaining the high quality of psychological assistance provided in CKU.
An important goal in the development of the organization is integration with local services, agencies and organizations, which allows for help in various areas of clients’ lives, and above all in adapting to multicultural Ireland, which strengthens their independence and sense of security. In connection with this, in 2011 we organized an integration seminar at the Mansion House in Dublin, in which several local organizations and services took part and we joined the National Drug Treatment Reporting System and Health Research Board.
At the end of 2013, we changed the name of the Centre to CKU - Centre for Counselling and Therapy (Consultation and Therapy Centre), and expanded our offer.
We started cooperation with CARP - Community Addiction Response Programme Killinarden Tallaght with James Kelly. Over the following years, we established cooperation with support services in Ireland. We participated in various scientific studies on addictions. In 2014, we took part in the 15th International Scientific Symposium EWODOR - European Working Group on Drugs Oriented Research at Trinity College in Dublin, where we presented the topic
"The importance of culture and language in therapeutic treatment and rehabilitation".
In 2015, together with Dr. Ewa Woydyłło, who was the director of the Regional Alcohol & Drug Program at the Stefan Batory Foundation, we organized the 1st European Polish Symposium on Helping Poles Addicted Abroad, "Poles Helping Poles", where the honorary guest was the Polish Ambassador to Ireland. The aim of the Symposium was to share our own experiences in helping Poles struggling with addiction and their families living in Ireland and other countries outside Poland.
For 10 years we have been organizing personal development workshops at Avoka, attended by CKU clients and their loved ones.
We continue our mission and expand our offer of professional psychological help in Polish in the field of mental health, meeting the needs of Poles living in Ireland.