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March 2013 |
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Afternoon session
into a wider geographical area, as well as providing services such as IT and web
support to local businesses in exchange for a percentage of their profits. ‘We’re a
community interest company, and we’re really proactive in our local community,’ he
said. ‘We’d much rather do that to bring in revenue than go to commissioners for a
hand out. We’re having a go, we’re taking risks – before it was just professionals, but
now there’s an opportunity for us to deliver services.’ In spite of the wider economic
climate, the future was ‘really exciting’ he told the conference.
Richard, one of the organisers of the fifth UK Recovery Walk in Birmingham later
this year told delegates how sheer enthusiasm and determination were paying
dividends. ‘It’s going to be a fantastic event. It’s bloody hard work, but we’ve got a
passionate group together to do it.’
With budgets being set at local level it was essential that the needs of service
users were met, said Jason of Wolverhampton service user involvement team SUIT.
‘We build pathways and create opportunities. After we’ve sourced an organisation
we don’t just send service users there – we go along and make sure that their needs
are being met. It’s imperative that outcomes are clearly demonstrated, and because
we’re able to do that we’ve had a 50 per cent increase in our grant.’ His organisation
worked closely with a range of agencies and institutions, and had a constantly
updated website that allowed service users to leave detailed feedback, he said.
‘We’re filling a need,’ stressed one delegate. ‘It’s so important to open up new
social networks for people who have been through the services’, while another
pointed out that many areas still did not have an effective advocacy service. ‘That
can make such a difference,’ he said.
Other delegates described activities such as operating drop-in centres, coffee
mornings, recovery cafes and gyms, alternative therapy groups, women’s groups and
choirs, as well as working closely with the police, probation and Jobcentre Plus and
even opening a charity shop. ‘We don’t want to be dependent on certain types of
funding for our services – it’s even got us into the local chamber of commerce.’
A representative from the newly formed UK Recovery Radio, meanwhile,
described how her organisation had been set up to ‘inspire, promote and celebrate
recovery from addiction’ via its podcasts. It also aimed to register as a charity and
establish training for others, she told the event.
‘At our last meeting there were 275 people wanting recovery,’ said a representative
of Lancashire LUF. ‘That’s awesome. People can recover from a hopeless state.’
The session closed with a rousing presentation from health campaigner and
activist Andria Efthimiou-Mordaunt, who described both her own story and the
importance of continued lobbying and campaigning. ‘My journey started in
Phoenix House – it was 1986 and we were told there was a new virus out there that
we had to take very seriously,’ she said. ‘There was a great need for opiate pain
control and we had to argue very forcefully to get that for our peers.’
A decade later a coalition of drug users and clinicians set up the John Mordaunt
Trust, named in honour of her late husband, an AIDS activist whose quote ‘There is
no war on drugs. There is, and always has been, a war on drug users’ had been
adopted by activists across the world.
Even Margaret Thatcher had seen the value in harm reduction, she stressed,
‘although obviously not for our sakes. But since then we’ve basically gone round
and round in circles, in a roughly ten-year cycle. So what happens now? Do we
want a country without pride, where we put people behind bars because they’re
drug-dependent?
‘For a long time we’ve complained about outside involvement in service user
representation,’ she said. ‘Now we have a chance to do things on our own. But you
need to be clear about what you want to do – for example, does it include advocacy?’
It was also vital to heal the schism between abstinence and harm reduction, she
stated. ‘We know that dead addicts don’t recover, and we have far more in common
than we have differences. Your recovery walks sound really inspiring, but can we
ensure that when you’re walking you have your drug-using peers next to you?
We’re dealing with serious issues, so let’s make sure we have fun at the same time.
‘We’re part of a history of a group of people who have been persecuted and
criminalised for a long time. Enough is enough.’
DDN
EPORTING
‘At our last meeting there
were 275 people wanting
recovery... That’s awesome.
People can recover from a
hopeless state.’
LUF REPRESENTATIVE
‘For a long time we’ve
complained about outside
involvement in service user
representation. Now we have a
chance to do things on our own.’
ANDRIA EFTHIMIOU-MORDAUNT