timeless and ambiguous because it is
made up of diverse interpretations.
Although it is the product of the
programme, it operates outside the
service that delivers the programme
and it moves from a homogenous
controlled thinking environment into an
ultimately divergent thinking process.
A recovery culture is imbued with
features that may operate in patterned
ways but the multiplicity of
interdependence and perception
diversity only adds to the complexity.
Recovery is here to stay, and it has
the potential to provide an extraordinary
economic and social value in the
transformation of our communities, yet
when everyone is thinking the same we
can fall into the trap that no one is
thinking at all. Recovery can present
itself as the answer to the problem
when in fact it is only the gateway to
the answer. It can also make and break
the individual – the sustainability factor
for social mobility is demanding.
Jim McCartney, chief executive,
THOMAS (Those on the Margins
of a Society)
JOINING FORCES
Southern Addictions Advisory Service,
a Surrey charitable status treatment
provider, recently acquired a
community enterprise business, AES
(Alpha Extreme Services) offering
extreme cleaning and clinical waste
management in the south east.
Six months on, we’re optimistic
about its future, both as an asset and
as a move on/stepping stone for
volunteers supporting the project.
As its manager, it’s interesting to
note how commercial business and
charitable treatment provider have
fused together, with both supplement-
ing and supporting each other. The
charity provides low-cost infrastructure,
resource and 20 years of experience/
links, while the community enterprise
provides a new funding stream/lower
costs and an opportunity.
For some, it’s ‘testing the waters of
life’ and for others it’s a step up toward
work. While it’s not a simple process to
gain all of the necessary licences,
business status and insurances, we’ve
had support from our DAT and other
similar businesses, and AES is now
providing services across the south east
to the public, voluntary and private
sector. Most potential clients aren’t in a
position to altruistically choose a social
enterprise over cost so the bottom line
is essential. Low overheads mean we
undercut competitors and we also
better understand the requirements of
other needle exchange programmes (no
onerous contracts). Our profile has
raised considerably and we have a wide
range of new stakeholders interested in
both our service and the charity’s works.
SAdAS, while economically careful
before, has now cut many running
costs. Now that cleaning is in-house,
our 100+ staff and volunteers, and
many hundreds of visiting clients, feel
prompted to pull together just a little
more. Visitors value the service more,
which in turn seems to improve client
attendance and, we hope, translate
into outcomes in the future.
So, combine a mix of ideas (good
ones), money (speculate and all
that!), willingness (dissenters will
scupper it), helpful friends (the more
the better) and amazing volunteers
(they make it a success).
It may provide an income-based
sellable asset, improved cohesion, team
spirit, client involvement, reduced costs
and raised profiles. More importantly, it
will improve neighbourhoods and the
community and act as a move-on
service for your clients where there may
be little or none available.
Gary Ochoa, SAdAS
We welcome your letters...
Please email them to the editor, claire@cjwellings.com or post them
to the address on page 3. Letters may be edited for space or clarity –
please limit submissions to 350 words.
Letters |
Enterprise report
December 2011 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 11
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
(DWP); and Amar Lodhia, serial entrepreneur and
chief executive of TSBC.
‘If you’re hungry, tired or ill, you don’t learn,’ said
Dr Hilary Emery of the National Children’s Bureau,
which worked to reduce the impact of inequalities to
improve life chances. Beyond these basic needs, ‘We
need young people to understand what they’re great
at,’ she said.
‘Mentors who like young people’ could play an
important role. ‘It’s about changing perceptions,’ she
said. ‘We have to build belief of aspiration and make
possibility probability.’
She also quoted a young person who had
commented on adult society’s commonly used tag of
‘hard-to-reach young people’ as saying: ‘We’re not
hard to reach. You don’t make the effort.’
Dr Emery suggested a ‘joined-up conversation’
between The Prince’s Trust and schools to talk about
entrepreneurship.
‘Schools need to make more effort beyond
GCSEs,’ she said. ‘How do we get schools to think
about every young person’s progression as well as
their academic achievement?’
Geoff Scammell said DWP worked with addiction,
ex-offenders and people who had real trouble
engaging with the labour market, but didn’t have a
very good track record of getting people into work.
‘We’re a great big sausage machine,’ he said. ‘We
tend to focus on the needs of the many rather than
the few, so entrepreneurship has taken the
background.’
But there had been increasing realisation that
disadvantage didn’t mean ‘without hope’, he said,
referring to recent research that linked high IQs to
likelihood of experimenting with drugs, and
pointing to the need to help these young people
discover their abilities.
‘Entrepreneurship can drive people – people with
addiction – turning negative energy into positive,’ he
said.
Rajeeb Dey of StartUP Britain saw a solution to
the debt crisis coming from young people setting up
in business.
‘It’s important to equip young people with an
entrepreneurial mindset,’ he said. ‘Teach them to
network, adapt and take risks.’ Education needed to
be remodelled, incorporating work experience and a
different attitude.
Small businesses and SMEs were largely ignored
on the university ‘milk rounds’, which was a wasted
opportunity. ‘We need enternships [entrepreneurial
opportunities] rather than internships, going into
SMEs for work experience,’ he said. ‘We need to
make young people realise that they cannot just take
a job, but make a job.’
‘Honour your mavericks – teachers don’t do that,’
said Amar Lodhia of TSBC. ‘It’s about having creative
passion. We don’t have enough people nurturing the
skills of our young people.’
Young people should form a vital part of
economic recovery, he said. One in five children came
from economically deprived backgrounds and one in
three 16 to 17-year-olds was unemployed – but there
was a window of opportunity here, he said.
‘Entrepreneurs who’ve come from a deprived
background are liabilities turned into assets.’
What they needed were role models, a stable
environment, incentives and a sense of aspiration –
and businesses needed to invest back into society by
hiring young people.
The government’s role in all this was in bridging
the gap and being proactive in helping young people
with their first step into business, he said,
acknowledging that there was no ‘quick fix’ solution.
‘If we try harder and work together, we can
bridge this gap and increase mobility,’ he said.
Members of the audience commented on specific
issues related to substance misuse.
Patricia Salt of Hackney Alcohol Service said:
‘What’s noticeable in some hardened drinkers is that
they started about the age of 12 – so before they’re
the age to be entrepreneurs. They get drunk because
they’re not coping with life. Also, for some, success is
really scary,’ she said.
Brent Clark of Spitalfields Crypt Trust pointed out
that getting people who had had drug and alcohol
problems into employment could be very hard work
and that the process often had to be taken in stages.
‘Full-time employment can be overwhelming for our
group,’ he said. Half days were a practical way of
giving people a step on the ladder.
The idea of positive role models was reinforced by
many. Geoff Dear said his work ethic had been
instilled by his father having two jobs to put food on
the table. ‘What happens when you have parents
who have never worked?’ he asked.
‘Role models are vital,’ added Stephen Fear, now
the owner of 64 companies. ‘When my parents split
up, I lived with my father in a council flat. He had to
go to work and locked me in, telling me not to look
out of the window. Then I lived with my mother in a
touring caravan and had two years of schooling in
my life. But I loved to read and modelled my whole
life on Ivanhoe. Had I not learned to read, I would
have had nothing.
‘You have to have role models. Young people make
role models from drug dealers – I was lucky, I didn’t
have those. The right role models are the key.’
DDN