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‘H
ow can we get employment at the heart of our services,’ asked
Selina Douglas, managing director of substance misuse and
offending at Turning Point. ‘We’re a social enterprise with an
ethos of helping and supporting,’ she said. ‘So how can we join up
a network of social enterprises? Let’s get some energy behind it.’
There were many questions surrounding barriers to employment. ‘How do we
give people hope that there’s employment at the end of this?’ she asked. ‘How can
we make sure frontline staff are positive and motivated? How can we make
partnerships real and get people into employment?’
The reality of the sector was that we were being asked to do more for less, but
partnerships – such as those with colleges, training providers and the job centre –
were more important than ever.
Turning Point’s ‘Back in Business’ model involved talking to people about their
aspirations and how to reach them, and included looking at life skills, literacy and
IT, as well as offering trial interviews.
‘It’s important we talk about these small goals and steps,’ said Douglas. Turning
Point was also keen to ‘help social enterprises to stand on their own two feet’, and
had been working with Business in the Community to build relationships with local
business and tackle stigma in the workforce.
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) had created a
peer support network to bring ‘experts by experience’ into the workplace, said
Annette Dale-Perera, strategic director of addiction and offender care at CNWL. Co-
presenting with Alan Butler, who was a peer support worker at the Max Glatt Unit,
an inpatient detox facility for drug and alcohol addiction, she explained that the
success of such schemes depended on thorough preparation with the staff teams,
getting them used to recovery-orientated approaches.
‘We rewrote policies and renewed support mechanisms – this is a learning
experience,’ she said. Supervision, support and training days for the new recruits
were enhanced by ‘giving them time and space where they owned the environment
and when they shared it with staff,’ she said. ‘It’s about respect.’
While CNWL were ‘very active on keeping staff and experts by experience
happy’, through encouraging them to be healthy and active and explore the ‘five
ways to wellbeing’, she was realistic that people did sometimes relapse and ‘fall
over’. Alongside having robust support systems in place, she said, it was important
to ‘try to learn together’.
Having ‘lived in addiction for three decades’, Alan Butler was driven by wanting
to use his experience to help others.
‘I came to the unit and wanted to give my lived experience to the patients who
were suffering,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t realise howmuch my experience would benefit
the staff, giving them insights they’d never had before.’
Arguing his case to stay at the unit at first (because of the perceived risks to his
own wellbeing), the value of his work was quickly recognised and valued.
‘A gambling man wouldn’t have put a pound on my recovery, yet here I am. I
would say to patients that if it’s possible for me, it’s possible for them. I’m just a bog-
standard addict,’ he said. ‘This work has a value. It provides a lifeline that’s vital.’
*****
‘How do we get to people before they get to chaos?’ asked Martin Blakebrough,
chief executive of the Kaleidoscope Project, who presented with his colleague
Rondine Molinaro.
Blakebrough described Kaleidoscope’s partnership with Tata Steel, one of the
biggest employers in South Wales, which involved helping them to review their
Recovery Festival 2014 |
Employment
14 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| August 2014
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
‘This work has a value. It
provides a lifeline...’
ALAN BUTLER
‘It’s important to try to
learn together’
ANNETTE DALE-PERERA
Reintroducing people to
stable employment and
supporting them in the
workplace are challen-
ges that can be met
with the right policies
and culture – and a
dash of inspiration,
heard delegates at the
recent Recovery
Festival.
DDN
reports
STEP BY STEP
‘We’re a social enterprise
with an ethos of helping
and supporting... how can
we join up a network of
social enterprises?’
SELINA DOUGLAS