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"I have worked in this field for 15 years and seen a lot of different initiatives, but you don't often get the feeling that you have got the x-factor, but I got that feeling with Bridging the Gap."

So says Jon Royle, area director of Alcohol & Drug Services, the agency responsible for the project that walked away with two prizes at the Community Care Awards 2004.

Bridging the Gap is a pilot project based in Tameside near Manchester, whose bold strategy to train former drug and alcohol service users to work within substance misuse services has reaped dividends.

The idea for the project came when Royle was sitting on a local drugs strategy group in Wigan. "There was a national issue about not having the workforce to deliver the services envisaged in the government's 10-year plan," Royle says.

"There was the potential to run a course that would benefit the workforce and the people who went on it," he says. "So many users tell us there is nothing they would like more than to turn an incredibly negative experience in to something positive and use their experience to put something back. So you could almost see Bridging the Gap forming out of the ether."

Royle put together an ambitious proposal and put in a bid for funding from the single regeneration budget with matched funding from Europe. That proposal was to set up a six-month, part-time training course for 25 former service users to increase their employment prospects and to increase the number of skilled workers in the field.

He put in a lot of work presenting his vision to local community groups and trying to win the support of the statutory substance misuse agencies, which were initially very sceptical. "Some people questioned whether you could turn current or ex-drug users in to the workers of tomorrow."

A multi-agency steering group was set up in July 2003 with representatives from the drug action team, police, adult and young people's substance misuse services, Jobcentre Plus and the community. With backing from Tameside DAT co-ordinator Lisa Lees, funding for 18 months was secured and Royle was able to appoint project and training co-ordinator Michelle Ellis, and a part-time administrator.

Ellis's appointment was crucial says Royle: "We were setting up a challenging scheme and realised it would be difficult to get someone who had training and teaching skills who was also an experienced drug and alcohol worker. So what we were looking for was someone who had the teaching skills and the passion to work with people who had experienced difficulties and would communicate that passion, which these people would need to inspire them.

Royle had set a target for Ellis to attract 60 applicants and interview 40. In fact, 250 people applied to join the course, and 60 were interviewed. "I was looking for people who were going to complete the course - they needed to have academic ability and be stable," Ellis says. Of the 25 who were selected, 20 were current or former substance misuse service users, and the remaining five had experience as a "concerned other".

Unusually, the course accepts people who are still in treatment and taking prescribed medication, and criminal convictions do not disbar applicants as long as they are not for a violent crime.

The training, which takes place in different community centres around Tameside, consists of a one-week induction, a structured six-month training programme over 15 hours each week that aims to give a broad foundation in drug work including communication skills, drug treatment and assessment options, harm reduction, diversity and child protection. Six hours are spent learning the core skills, and in addition students receive two hours of mentoring or supervision and spend up to seven hours working in placements.

Nineteen students from the first course graduated in September. This figure compares extremely favourably with a drop out rate of 50 per cent in standard drug treatment. Seventeen of the graduates have gone on to either paid employment, further study or voluntary work in the field.

"The outcomes were unprecedented," says Royle. "What we are doing changes lives. Users don't just want treatment and medication. They say 'we want a life, we want what you have got - a job and some pride and self-esteem'. They believe they can get that from this scheme, and that is what we have given them."

ADS chief executive Liz Smith believes another important component is the way the project has enabled students to get support outside of the classroom. "Friendships have sprung up and it's giving students a life away from their old one. They have developed new support networks, which is invaluable and something they can't get anywhere else," she says.

The second course started in September and, buoyed by its success, the project has expanded the number of students to 29.

Everyone at the project was delighted by its success at the Community Care Awards. "It was an amazing feeling - I was numb. It is just such a wonderful honour to think that from hundreds of superb projects we were chosen and wonderful reward for everyone's efforts. You don't get excellence unless the people who are involved in delivering it see it as more than a job."

For Smith, waiting back at headquarters, it was the icing on the cake in what is ADS's 30th anniversary. "When the call came through to say we had won I howled and cried for joy," she says. Ellis says she was simply "overwhelmed".

Some of the award money will be used to employ additional session workers whom it is hoped will be graduates of the scheme. The rest will be spent on new IT equipment, and to launch a marketing campaign to disseminate the work of the project and its remarkable achievements.

"I would like to see a project like Bridging the Gap in every drug action team area in England," says Royle.

What Bridging the Gap students said about the project:

Lindsey Costelloe
"It does change people's lives, whether you have been a user or not. I have become friends with people who have been heavy drugs users and have got an insight into what service users need. I have enjoyed every minute of it."

Matthew Ashworth
"I spent about eight years as a heavy end drug user, was in and out of prison and was ruining my life. But I received a lot of help and managed to get off drugs so I wanted to give something back to the community. This course is a stepping stone into further education or training."

James Downie
"I was an alcoholic and a drug addict, but I have been clean for the last 13 months. I wanted to get some experience of working in the drugs and alcohol field to give something back and to help myself. It's been really good - I thought I knew a lot but, in the grand scheme of things - I didn't know much."

Marilyn Barber
"Alcohol & Drugs Services saved my life. My problem is alcohol and I was in such a bad state 14 months ago. But I went into a detox programme and then came to ADS and heard about Bridging the Gap. The course is fantastic, and I've met some really great people."