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W
hen Phoenix Futures won ‘best employer’ at the recent Third Sector
Excellence Awards, one of the reasons cited – alongside the
organisation’s commitment to volunteer involvement – was that 11
per cent of the staff and 10 per cent of management had graduated
through the service themselves. ‘That’s part of who we are,’ says
chief executive Karen Biggs. ‘We came from a self-help origin, and the fact that
graduates of our services and service users are deeply involved in the culture of the
organisation we take for granted. You forget that that’s impressive to other people.’
She’s been chief executive since 2007, overseeing 700 staff and nearly 90
services across community, prison and residential settings, following a 17-year
career at Stonham Housing Association. Much of her time there was spent running
supported housing services for prolific offenders, and a feeling that she was ready
for a change coincided with being headhunted for the Phoenix Futures job. ‘When I
saw the other candidates I thought I didn’t have a chance,’ she says.
It was meeting Phoenix’s service users, however, that convinced her that the
position was something she wanted. ‘As part of our recruitment process we get our
service users to take people around – they spend a good few hours with them
before they see us or the board, and that was the experience I had. They gave us a
tour of the house, talked about their programme and their life, and I thought, “if
this is the core of the organisation – if the people going through that programme
are so aware and passionate and active – then I really want to lead it.”’
One aspect of the staff involvement that impressed the awards was the
organisation’s annual ‘innovation factor’ competition, which encourages
employees to come up with new ideas, with a cash prize for the best. ‘Lots of third
sector organisations say “we’re really innovative” so we challenged ourselves to
prove that,’ she says. ‘We knew that people from across the organisation had really
good ideas, but we didn’t always get to hear them.’
The fact that the ideas are implemented by the organisation also encourages
people to think big, she says – ‘we get lots of little ideas where we’ll say “just go
ahead and do it”’. The first winning entry was the Phoenix Forest, where a tree is
planted for everyone who’s stayed drug or alcohol free for a year after completing
treatment. ‘We do an annual planting and it’s a mark on the landscape for recovery
– there’s all sorts of symbolism from that, because you normally plant trees for
people who are dead. They’re tiny trees at the moment but there’s a lot of them. I
didn’t think we’d ever get a better idea, but we did.’
The follow-up was the Voyage of Recovery, which saw groups of service users
taking part in a sea voyage around Britain (
DDN
, March, page 15). ‘The idea doesn’t
have to – and this one certainly doesn’t – save the organisation money, but it has
to be able to deliver what we do in a different way and pursue our mission,’ she
says. ‘The panel said, “clearly it’s the best idea but we can’t do it – it’s going to cost
us £70,000 and it’s a hundred service users currently in treatment going around
the country.” But I thought we can’t not do it because we’re scared of it.’
The 1,800-mile sea voyage has had a profound effect on the lives of those who
have taken part, she stresses. ‘I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told,
“it’s an experience I would never have expected, it’s given me the courage to go on
with the next part of my life”. A guy in his mid-30s told me told me that not only
had he never been on holiday – that isn’t uncommon among our service users –
but he’d never left Birmingham his whole life, and he had the courage to say, “yes I
want to do this”. That tells you so much about the disadvantage we deal with.’
The trip was ‘by no means a holiday’, however. ‘They’ve had to work really hard,
but just to go and do something different was really important. I feel it’s our
responsibility to be able to give our service users experiences that they’ve never
had before, because that could be the key to unlock the potential for recovery –
that’s a good enough reason.’
The effect has also been felt further afield, helping to raise awareness in local
communities as service users raised money for their leg of the voyage through
activities like packing customers’ bags in the supermarket. ‘As they’re doing that,
with a Phoenix t-shirt on, people are asking “what’s Phoenix?”We’re reaching
people we would never have reached and raising the profile of the services.’
A core belief of those services is that people have the potential to rebuild their
lives, she states. ‘We first meet people because of their drug and alcohol issues,
but if we just did treatment we’d only be doing half the job. Giving them
experiences like the voyage, but also the employment stuff we do, the housing
stuff, that’s what makes the difference.’
*****
From being abstinence-based in its early days, Phoenix Futures now delivers both
abstinence-oriented and harm reduction services. Coming from outside the sector
– ‘I still feel like the new girl,’ she says – the polarisation between the two was
something she didn’t understand.
‘I genuinely didn’t get it. I’d worked in an organisation that delivered services for
people fleeing domestic violence as well as for perpetrators of domestic violence. I
thought if you can do that within one organisation why can’t you deliver two
different types of treatment that ultimately are aimed at the same thing? Yes, we
came from an abstinence-based organisation but we’ve grown and developed – we
did some of that organically and some of it was a strategic decision. I think as a
sector we’re starting to get over [the polarisation] but it’s been quite hard. It’s
because people believe so passionately in what they do – that creates that
ideological drive that sometimes is really helpful but sometimes isn’t.’
On the subject of polarisation, as the cuts and restructuring continue, there’s been
criticism of services transferring from the NHS to the third sector, with RCGP chair
Clare Gerada stating that ‘if we only have the third sector and general practice we
won’t achieve anything’ (
DDN
, July, page 18). How does she respond to those views?
‘I think we’ve got to be really careful that that doesn’t become the new big fight,
because that would be so self-defeating,’ she says. ‘But my response is the same –
you need a multiplicity of providers. There are some things that I think the bulk of
the third sector are good at and some things that the bulk of the statutory sector
are good at. For Phoenix I’m really clear about what we do, and I think we really
stretch the organisation – geographically and in terms of the settings we provide
services in – prison, community, residential and then branching out into the
employability, housing and family stuff. For me that’s enough.’
Phoenix looks to its partners for clinical provision, she explains. ‘If we go into
tenders we look for good partners who share our vision and have high levels of
clinical governance. Sometimes it will be a third sector organisation and sometimes
it will be a statutory organisation, and we’ve got some nice arrangements with
mental health trusts. I’m not saying it’s really easy, because there’s a dynamic that
happens in those services between statutory staff and third sector staff – NHS and
Phoenix staff – but for me that’s where that dynamic should happen, because they’re
working out on the ground how to move people through a treatment pathway more
quickly. That’s where the real impact’s going to be.’
Voyag
18 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| November 2012
Profile |
Karen Biggs
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
With its Voyage of Recovery just
completed,
David Gilliver
talks to
Phoenix Futures chief executive
Karen Biggs about overcoming
polarisation and embracing change