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October 2013 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 19
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Recovery month |
Activities
changes in people’s lives and also gives renewed hope to those around, by allowing
them to understand there is something else out there other than addiction.
The tournament has been a fantastic success and I would like to take this
opportunity to congratulate the winning team Norcare. The awards and
recognition are great of course but the recovery shield is all about coming together,
as individuals in recovery, partner agencies, friends and family and all those who
work in the substance misuse field to celebrate and promote recovery. This is at the
heart of everything we do.
If you are interested in being involved in the 2014 recovery shield please get in
touch!
Richard Cunningham is peer mentor coordinator for substance misuse at Turning
Point, richard.cunningham@turning-point.co.uk
We made the path
With its ambitious walks and varied
activities across the country,
the vision of a recovery month became a
reality, says Alistair Sinclair
As I write this, on the last day of September, I’m on my
way to the Wirral to attend the ARCH 20th
anniversary recovery event and mark the end of the
first UK recovery month. This seems particularly apt
as a few days ago I attended the official launch of
Hope Springs, a new recovery centre in Chesterfield,
Derbyshire, where Mark Gilman, recovery lead at Public Health England, talked
about the heroin explosion on the Wirral in the mid-80s. Mark said that nearly 30
years later, people on the Wirral were ‘finding recovery’ with the same people who
had introduced them to heroin, and he went on to talk about the vital importance
of authenticity, healthy social networks and visible recovery in communities.
Recovery was very visible at the fifth UK recovery walk in Birmingham on 22
September. Around 5,000 people from all over the UK walked through the city
centre, celebrating community strengths, solidarity and the importance of
building friendships and connections. Organised and delivered by the Birmingham
Recovery Community (you can find them on Facebook) the UK recovery walk was
the big celebration in a recovery month that saw events in many places across the
UK. The UKRF had promoted the ‘idea’ of a recovery month through its networks,
and we were pleased – if not a little relieved – to see 49 recovery events (that we’re
aware of) take place throughout September. This year was a bit of a rehearsal for
future years, but it saw thousands of people engaged in making recovery visible
and making new connections in many places across communities.
On 1 September more than 100 people from Birmingham, Chester, Coventry,
Leicester, Lancashire, Bradford and North Wales, climbed 3,600 feet to mark the
beginning of recovery month, raising a purple flag of recovery on Snowdon’s
summit. Gloucestershire and Cumbria held their first recovery walks and Weston
held its second. In Lancashire, 55 very determined people endured appalling rain to
climb to the top of Pendle Hill. There were other walks – some in fancy dress and
sponsored – in Cleethorpes, Scunthorpe and Leicester and a bike ride in
Morecambe. Dublin held its second Irish recovery walk and there were recovery
celebrations in Ayr, Durham, Doncaster, Cardiff and Liverpool. There were film
nights in Wigan and Blackpool, football tournaments in York, Burnley and
Lancaster; an art exhibition in Liverpool; a festival in Oxford; a recovery awareness
day in Kingston and the opening of Café Hub in Blackburn.
The UKRF ran six workshops in recovery month exploring community values
and strengths in Derbyshire, Rochdale, Norwich and Birkenhead. Working in
partnership with the Derbyshire NHS Trust, we brought people from the worlds of
mental health and drug recovery together at a national conference in Chesterfield
to explore shared values and begin work on a recovery model for the whole
community.
Ruth Passman from NHS England spoke at our conference and invited recovery
community members to an NHS values summit in Manchester. The summit was
opened by the head of NHS England, Sir David Nicholson, who described it as
taking place in ‘national recovery month’. This idea – a month that brings people
together to champion recovery in its widest sense, celebrating and promoting
wellbeing for all within communities – became a reality in September.
For recovery activists involved in September’s activities, 2013 will be a
significant year. The British recovery movement, a movement that places individual
and community wellbeing above drug or alcohol or mental health status, is finally
‘The British recovery movement, a move-
ment that places individual and community
wellbeing above drug or alcohol or mental
health status, is finally on the move.’
‘I am not claiming that events like this
are the magic cure for those in recovery
but they can go a long way towards
helping people reintegrate...’