‘ Unlocking people ’ s talents and providing opportunity through positive change ... will profoundly develop success in recovery .’ |
CHRISTIANNE JENKINS
BUBIC ( Bringing Unity Back Into The Community ). His organisation had built a strong relationship with commissioners and treatment providers , he added . ‘ It ’ s not us and them – it ’ s us together – because the most important person is the client .’ In the early days of the organisation it had been challenging , however , said his colleague Adé . ‘ The clients told us more than they told anyone else , but when we ’ d go meetings there ’ d be no data sharing .’
‘ Eight years ago I was in a rehab thinking my life was over – I ’ m managing SUIT today ,’ said Marcus Johnson of Wolverhampton-based SUIT ( Service User Involvement Team ). He ’ d started as a volunteer himself , and in the last 18 months or so his organisation
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had managed to get 30 of its volunteers into paid employment – something that was achieved through partnership working with local clinical organisation Recovery Near You . ‘ We ’ re into our sixth year of working with them . Sometimes the partnership ’ s a bit like the Conservatives and the Lib Dems , but it ’ s getting better . And for organisations like ours to continue to exist , it ’ s all about funding .’ Everybody at SUIT had lived experience , he stressed . ‘ They all bring something you can identify with . For me , the power of identification and lived experience saved my life .’
LIVED EXPERIENCE Alcohol use in the South Asian community was a ‘ massive ’ problem , said his colleague Sanjiv , and it could be hard to engage with this population group . Issues facing the community
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included older generations not understanding addiction , pressure to succeed in academia and pressure to enter arranged marriages . ‘ People do turn to drink and drugs to relieve this pressure , and the language barrier is a big problem . I can speak Punjabi – having an understanding of where they ’ ve come from and being able to speak the language helps .’
SUIT volunteer Karolina Sowinska was able to use her lived experience to engage with the Polish and Eastern European community , she told the conference . Overall , there were 10,000 people in Wolverhampton whose access to services was limited by a language barrier – ‘ Punjabi , Polish , Czech , Slovakian , Lithuanian .’ While previously , there were just two Polish people – from a local population of more than 3,400 – in local services , since SUIT ’ s
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outreach work with Karolina , four had been registered in June alone . ‘ And I hope in the future I can make those numbers much bigger .’
Recovery through creative and collective processes was also encouraged and celebrated at SUIT , said volunteer and PhD student Christiane Jenkins . Peerled support could show that transformation was possible , she stated . ‘ Unlocking people ’ s talents and providing opportunity through positive change in a social group will profoundly develop success in recovery . Recovery is contagious .’ SUIT had now also developed a creative arts collective , she said . ‘ Exploring the arts can mean discovering lost skills , identifying emotions and communicating our feelings – especially for people coming from multiple disadvantage .’ It was the ‘ outreach of opportunity ’ to those who would otherwise be excluded . DDN
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