EntErprisE
8 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| June 2016
Building a future
I
’ve always believed in redemption – especially as a police officer. I have been an
officer for 27 years working in London and Lancashire, but I never went in for
just catching and convicting people. I wanted to reduce crime and the numbers
of victims by helping people.
Sometimes, though, it was hard to help them. I remember picking up an offender
on his release from prison. He’d managed to detox from drugs and was feeling
hopeful about finally turning his life around. I had to drop him off at his new home –
there was no running water and the walls were covered in mould. Perhaps
unsurprisingly, he relapsed within just a few days. I realised that many people had
limited chances to succeed in life, and that this led them to addiction and criminality.
In Blackpool one of my roles was custody sergeant at Bonny Street Police
Station. I’d be sitting on my side of the desk, knowing I was in a purposeful job with
loving family and friends around me and a nice home to go back to, while these
people being brought in rarely had all that. I’d wonder how their life came to be so
different to mine that we’d ended up on opposite sides of the desk. I realised that
so often their criminality was linked to limited life chances – family breakdown,
transiency, poor education, no work skills and negative social networks.
Later as a community safety sergeant, I worked with organisations across the
town on early intervention work, bringing people together to make something new
– greater than the sum of their parts.
That’s what I've been able to do at JFH. It’s a property development and
management enterprise, and two thirds of our team are in recovery. We will take on
a property and renovate it, training team members through adult apprenticeships
in plumbing, plastering, painting and decorating, electrical engineering, joinery and
tiling. Then once they’ve completed the house they are able to move into it. Along
the way we offer wraparound and peer support.
We then have a lettings team, which manages the rental of these units as well
as hundreds of others across Blackpool. Here adults also in recovery are undertaking
office-based apprenticeships.
JFH is a community for people in abstinent recovery to join, inspire others and
show them there can be life after addiction. There were a number of ‘lightbulb
moments’ that got me to here. A turning point was seeing the rehabilitation work
being undertaken by the substance misuse service at HMP Kirkham, a category D
prison near Blackpool, where prisoners were being supported to stop using drugs
and achieve abstinence. But as with the lad who ended up in the grotty flat, I knew
there was limited support for offenders upon release. I knew they needed to be
engaged in purposeful activity and have a good, stable home too.
We work to Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs. If you haven’t got your basic needs for
safety and shelter met, it’s difficult for you to progress in other areas of your life,
whether work, education, relationships or general wellbeing.
Thus, JFH was formed in my head. I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get
the initial funding, but I worked on property in my own time and knew you could
Steve Hodgkins is the founder and CEO of Jobs,
Friends and Houses (JFH) – a multi award-
winning social enterprise offering employment,
peer support and accommodation to people in
recovery from addiction.
A serving police officer of 27 years, he
founded the enterprise in 2014 after seeing
that more could and should be done to
rehabilitate offenders afflicted by addiction.
Now 18 months into the venture, he reflects
on how he came to establish the community
interest company and its successes so far –
including creating jobs for 28 people in
recovery, renovating nine properties to create
15 homes, and changing the lives and fortunes
of dozens in Blackpool, Lancashire.
