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Over the past six months
we’ve been changing
here at TSBC. We’re transforming from a provider
of training programmes to an organisation that
still engages users through enterprise, but now in
bespoke one-to-one sessions, embedded within a
statutory or commissioned provision. We call this
new model our Local Enterprise and Employability
Service, or LEES for short.
One component of the new service is a work
trial and job brokerage scheme that supports
clients into short work placements with the aim
of up-skilling them for their own ventures or
supporting them into employment with small
and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), both locally and regionally. It’s clearly
capturing the attention of the commissioners we’ve been speaking to.
Most people naturally understand an employer’s reticence about hiring
someone with a criminal record or someone who’s battled an addiction. But
where does this cosy understanding come from? Scratch away at this and
you reveal a situation where no one is ever given a second chance or has the
opportunity to make amends for past mistakes.
For me, the aim of recruitment is to find the person who best matches the
skills, experience and personal qualities you need for the role. Excluding past
offenders and those who have battled with addiction, you are, by definition,
potentially missing out on the best match.
And when we talk of personal qualities, why would you not want to hire
someone who has shown the resilience and fortitude to start their life over
again? Time and again, we hear stories of how loyal people are to companies
who’ve given them a second chance. At TSBC, one of our participants, whom
we placed with a web developer, became their employee of the year that very
same year – how’s that for paying back someone’s faith in you?
Of course, there are roles within financial services, so-called ‘controlled
function’ roles, which have stipulations attached to them by the FCA. And
yes, when the job involves unsupervised working with children or vulnerable
adults, there’s a need to run a DBS (formerly CRB) check. But these account
for only a fraction of all roles available.
I’m encouraged by the new Ban the Box campaign recently launched by
charity Business in the Community (BITC) and supported by the likes of
Alliance Boots PLC. The campaign aims to enable people with the highest
barriers to employment to access work by challenging employers who use
the blunt instrument of a tick-box exercise which is rejecting passionate,
skilled employees – including those people who have received £300 fine for a
driving offence!
It is troubling when I hear people saying that ‘that’s a graduate job’ or ‘that’s
a very technical role’. This attitude simply fails to understand that addiction isn’t
limited to just one layer of society, and that alcohol and drugs are no respecters
of either intelligence or position. Once again, we need to urge employers to
move beyond the preconceptions and consider each person on their merits.
We’ve recently come across an organisation trying to persuade employers
to do just that. Clean Sheet are working to find employers who are willing to
give offenders a fair chance, because they know that most ex-offenders do
want to work.
As Anita Roddick told me over a cup of tea once – business must be a
force for positive social change first and economic change will follow suit!
To enquire more about our work please contact me at amar@tsbccic.org.uk
and follow me on Twitter @amarlodhia or @tsbclondon. Don’t forget to use
the #tag DDNews when tweeting!
Amar Lodhia is chief executive of The Small Business Consultancy CIC (TSBC)
CLAIMS REJECTED
We are writing in response to the letter
from Stephen Keane in your last issue
regarding alcohol treatment in the East
Riding (
DDN
, December 2013, page 16).
The NHS does not refer patients
into the Alcohol Support Project East
Yorkshire, though patients are at
liberty to contact this organisation if
they wish, as they could any other
voluntary group. It is not the case
that ‘there are no other support
groups in most of East Yorkshire’.
Apart from a large number of active
groups run by Alcoholics Anonymous,
the East Riding supports Humbercare,
a locally contracted charity that
provides support to service users,
and provides mentoring training and
opportunities to support drop-in
services in the East Riding.
Humbercare actively promotes and
supports two groups that are open to
clients with any form of addiction.
We would also take issue with the
claim that a person referred to the
alcohol aftercare service was told
‘They can’t take anyone else on for a
few weeks.’ People who are referred
to the alcohol aftercare service are
always written to directly. In instances
where there is a wait for a specific
element of the service, support is
always offered. Typically people are
offered such support through the East
Riding Direct Access Service, which is
available at a wide variety of venues
throughout the East Riding. Finally the
reasons for Mr Keane being asked not
to attend the treatment forum have
been fully explained to him in writing,
though he is, of course, at liberty not
to agree with them.
Tony Margetts, substance misuse
manager, East Riding of Yorkshire;
David Reade, involvement team leader,
Humbercare; Victoria Coy, service
manager addictions, Humber NHS
Foundation Trust; Tim Young, chief
executive, Alcohol and Drug Service
ROUTE TO RECOVERY
I read DIP practitioner Jesse Fayle’s
letter with interest (
DDN
, December
2013, page 16), but was disappointed
to discover apparent support for the
idea that ‘recovery’ has numerous
meanings, instead of recognising that
recovery from addiction falls into two
main phases, the first of which is
essential to achieving the second.
Dictionaries define recovery as ‘a
return to a previous preferred superior
state or standing’, and in respect of
recovery from substance addiction
this emerges as a return to the
natural state of abstinence.
We then find other recovery steps
resting on this foundation, which have
together been perceived as ‘the
recovery journey’ to what the majority
of citizen’s consider a ‘normal life’ –
recovery of responsibility, recovery from
criminality and poor health, recovery of
employment potential, of normal social
relationships and of wellbeing and
control of one’s life, etc.
There are also two classes of
addicts – the 70 to 75 per cent who
have regularly tried to kick their habit
(often daily) yet, having failed,
continue to try, and the other 25 to 30
per cent of restive cases who have no
desire or intention whatsoever to quit
for well-known reasons.
Those vested interests who wish to
see the prescribing of addictive
substances continue as the main
treatment for drug addiction have, for
their own reasons, placed emphasis on
the recovery journey and on the 25 to
30 per cent of resistive cases, instead
of on the return to lasting relaxed
abstinence and the 70 to 75 per cent
of addicts who want to quit their
dependency but don’t know how and so
need the opportunity to learn.
Resistive cases ‘who just don’t get
it when it comes to embracing
recovery’ may well be contenders for
OST or naloxone, but the other 70 to
75 per cent have been proving for 48
years that they are enthusiastic and
successful students when it comes to
training to cure themselves and to
achieving lasting abstinence.
Furthermore, such training results
cost our taxpayers a fraction of what
they pay for OST.
Kenneth Eckersley, CEO, Addiction
Recovery Training Services (ARTS)
Enterprise corner|
Letters
January 2014 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 11
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
LETTERS
ENTERPRISE CORNER
NEW HORIZONS
We must challenge employers who don’t acknowledge
the value of a second chance, says
Amar Lodhia