I attended a conference in Manchester last week that filled me with hope and inspiration for the future. It wasn't the Conservative Party Conference it was the Phoenix Futures Service User Conference, designed and delivered by service users of Phoenix Futures from Sheffield, Barnsley, Birmingham, Wirral and Trafford. Supported by the Trafford Drug Action Team with Phil Valentine as keynote speaker.

I spoke at that conference about generations of recovery.

At Phoenix Futures we have the privileged of knowing people who having addressed their addiction in our services in the 1960s and 1970s went on to create other recovery services across the world – true pioneers in recovery.

Many Phoenix Futures staff have been in recovery, generations of them all with their own experience of addiction and recovery. All experts by experience contributing to the unique character of the organisation.

You often hear people talk about generations of worklessness, generations of addiction. Many of our service users will have been introduced to drugs by a mum or dad, brother or sister with a substance misuse issue.

But how often do we talk about recovery being passed through the generations. An alternative heritage than the one we are born into that can support and inspire motivate and nurture us to recovery.

The music and clothes are different. The drugs being used today are likely to be different to those accessing services in the 1960s and 1970s. The older recovery generation would say that those accessing services today have it easy; services are easier to access, methadone is easier to get, benefits are more forthcoming.

That makes the detail of the recovery experience different but the constant is that for generations people with addictions have been accessing services that help them get better and as they progress through their recovery they get better than well. They become good mums and dads, they become talented employees, they inspire and lead in turn give hope and aspiration to others. They become role models of the best kind and show others what can be achieved.

What better way to spend a day than in the presence of those that have recovered inspiring those still on their recovery journey.

No wonder we had a better day at our conference than those politicians and party activists in the other conference in Manchester last week!

Read more about the event in our news section

 

I first went to football practice down at the Power League when I came into Phoenix Futures Scottish Residential Service for my alcohol addiction. After I got off of my detox Stephen Kennedy (from the Therapeutic Team) asked me and the other girls in Phoenix Futures if we would like to go down to the Power League for a game of football. I've always liked football, I used to play in my secondary school for the girls team. I enjoyed that very much and take my two boys to football training with the teams, even my oldest daughter was in a team in her school as well, so we are a football family. The two boys are season ticket holders at Parkhead as well so we have always played and watched football. But my addiction got really bad a few years before I came to Phoenix Futures. I lost my kids due to my addiction; they currently stay with family until I get my life sorted out.

I went to football down at the Power League really just to get out of the Main House during group times; I ended up being the only girl from Phoenix Futures as the rest of them didn't want to do it. But I enjoyed it so much and then Stephen told me they were doing trials for the Scotland Woman's Homeless World Cup (HWC) Team in Paris. I thought I would give it a bash but at 35 I didn't think anything of it but I went for it anyway. I got through to the last 12, and thought I had done good and that boosted my confidence up then I got a phone call from Davie Duke the Scotland manager to say I had made the last eight, I couldn't believe it. I just threw myself in about it, but my fitness wasn't that great either but the more I got into the HWC the more I thrived on the fact that I have the chance in a lifetime thing here and I was going to grab it with both hands.

I went to Paris with my team, anyway we were ranked 16th and we came 5th place which was all good for me and my team as we came together as a team and we did our best and enjoyed it. The Scotland Boys went on to win the World Cup so what a feeling that was, Scotland has never had a female team in the HWC so what an achievement for us as homeless people coming from different backgrounds and getting to fifth place. I would just like to thank Phoenix Futures and David Duke for this chance and get back in my programme and get my life in order for the sake of myself and my kids. I think this has been a great opportunity for my recovery and has helped improve my confidence, self esteem and motivation levels. It has also made me a stronger person and gave me more of a belief in my self and future.

Find out more about the Scotland Team in the Homeless World Cup

Read more news from Phoenix Futures

 

There is nothing more effective in bringing silence to a cosy middle class dinner party than my answer to this question. My husband and I now time how long it takes for people to ask, "How did you get into that then?" For them the career path to becoming a Energy Regulator or a Stockbroker is so much clearer than how you end up becoming the Chief Executive of a drug and alcohol treatment agency.

If things get too uncomfortable my husband comes to the rescue. "That's how we met", he tells them. He is a musician – well it all falls into place!

Many of us working in the sector this weekend will have had those arguments about addiction and the inevitability of it. The death of Amy Winehouse has for many reinforced their prejudice that all musicians are drug addicts and all drug addicts die.

The media who should know better this week of all weeks, haven't pulled back from their glamorisation of addiction, adding Amy to the list of all those talented people who die from addiction and making one more member of the 27 Club.

The debate that is following Amy Winehouse's death for me typifies what is wrong with the way this society looks at addiction.

The death of Amy Winehouse is very sad. It's not sad because she was a hugely talented musician. It's sad because her life came to an end possibly through addiction. And that makes her story no different to the stories of mums and dads, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters across the country that today are dying of their addiction.

The depressing truth is that many families have an Amy, or someone like her, who is wrestling with a dreadful condition that takes huge strength and bravery to get over.

Most wont have her talent or have so many people tracking their decline into an addiction that will ruin their lives. But all need our support and the opportunity (however many times it takes) to get help.

I have the privilege of seeing people recover from addiction every working day. I know it is possible but I also know how hard it is.

It is witnessing recovery that makes me love my job. And it's very sad stories of the people like Amy who don't make it that make me more determined to ensure that people understand the reality of addiction and the possibility of recovery.

 

In a book I read recently the original Phoenix House was referred to as a self help organisation. Some might baulk at the idea of their organisation being referred to in this way but actually I think it epitomises the essence of what Phoenix Futures is today and what I am most proud of.

Along the course of the last 40 years there have been the inevitable tensions between the 'professionals', the psychiatrists, and those 'experts by experience', the service users.

I think everyone at Phoenix Futures today is an expert by experience and delivers that expertise in a wholly professional manner. Their expertise may come from direct personal experience of the treatment system or as a result of experience of delivering services in a wide range of settings to a wide range of people. It is that diversity of experience that we relish and gives us an insight into how to deliver effective recovery services.

This month we held our 3rd annual New Years Honours awards. This is one of the best events in the Phoenix Futures calendar where we honour the outstanding dedication and commitment of our staff and volunteers.

Each year I give a Chief Executive's Award which is my opportunity to highlight someone's outstanding contribution to our work. This year I gave the award to a graduate of Phoenix Futures and a current volunteer. Jose is an inspiration to all those moving through their recovery journey. In his acceptance speech he said that after many attempts at not achieving abstinence, through the support and care he got from Phoenix Futures he was able to rebuild his life. I don't believe recovery organisations save lives, I believe that we give people the tools to allow them to save their own lives.

That is what our experience has given us and I am very proud that we continue to help people become experts in recovery.

 

In November we saw the six month anniversary of the new government. In her recent speech to the Drugscope Annual conference Karen Biggs gives her review of how the last six months have affected the sector:

"In some ways you can look at the developments over the last few months as good news for the sector. A focus on recovery, localism and engagement of the third sector are all big policy ideas to be welcomed.

The reality is however that when you come to implement your grand ideas inevitable real life has a habit of getting in the way. Our challenges now are to understand how we can cope with the cuts and whether we can convince those local communities that continued investment in drug and alcohol services is a good use of their limited money.

I still like some of the big ideas.

The sense of social responsibility that some of the Big Society ideas aim to engender have real advantages for us in the sector.

Whether it creates Cameron's vision of an army of volunteers and community workers striving to make the difference in the most deprived areas, only time will tell.

But I don't like the idea that volunteers are a way of fending off the impact of the cuts. Volunteers are not free staff – if you look after your volunteers you train them, support them and ensure that their skills are being used appropriately to compliment the work of your paid staff. The benefits are that you can enhance good community engagement and ownership of services and god knows we need that now.

The focus on recovery I like.

Recovery is in our organisational DNA. We know how to do it in harm reduction services as well as abstinence services, what I have hated is it being used as a political weapon to divide and discredit the sector. I'm delighted to see that we are starting to see some movement within the sector to a consensus about recovery. The Drug Sector Partnerships recovery consensus statement led by Drugscope, Adfam, Eata and the Alliance, is an example how we are seeing a new maturity in the debate about what recovery means.

The cuts I accept.

They will be tough and only the fittest will survive.

We have to be vigilant through them and use this period as a wake up call to realise that in order to be able to continue to deliver effective good quality services to the most marginalised we can't sit back and rest on our laurels. We need to continually demonstrate the effectiveness of what we do. As much as we might hate it we need to justify why we should exist and play to whatever agenda it takes to protect the funding we need to deliver what we know works.

Payment by results is a feature of our future.

Much of the detail is yet to be announced but what is clear is that it will radically change the landscape of drug and alcohol treatment over the coming years.

The scale of the change is at times overwhelming.

Phoenix works within numerous local authorities across most of the key funding streams for our sector. Every major stakeholder we work with is experiencing (or expecting to experience) seismic change. The challenge is trying to navigate a path through that change whilst ensuring continuity of provision for our service users.

So what do I think of it all?

The period we are in is probably the most significant for our sector. The big ideas are not going to go away. The important thing for me is how we as a sector respond. Our response to these challenges is going to be the critical factor in deciding whether at the end of this change the treatment system is better or worse for our service users.

I hope as a sector we have the strength and maturity to do our best by them."

 

Chuck Dederich the founder of Synanon, the first addiction Therapeutic Community, said that what we do is teach people to live right, the fact that they choose to stop using drugs is just part of it.

And of course for many of us that is right, treatment isn't single dimensional. Tier 4 services are deeply rooted in Phoenix Futures history, it's where we learnt how to do recovery 40 years ago and whilst we continue to flex and adapt the model to the needs of our service users the core of what we do remains as true to those principles of the founding fathers.

But those services haven't survived for 40 years without understanding that the needs and wants of our service users and our communities and our governments change.

We can't be an island of resistance in the current world of change and those providers that are won't survive. The days of Tier 4 services working in splendid isolation are over.

Some thought that the new government was going to be the great saviour of Tier 4 services. And whilst I don't doubt their commitment to recovery I do hope that people have realised by now that this commitment doesn't mean loads of money being pored into the provision of Tier 4.

You don't have to listen too carefully to the government to hear that they no longer want drug treatment services – they want recovery services. What it means is that for the first time we will be commissioned to deliver the wrap around services that enable people to 'live right'. We will be measured on how our services support and reinforce the recovery capital of our service users.

 

It is clearly time to stop saying change is coming and accept that change is here. Whilst most of us may be reminding ourselves it is the summer it isn't stopping every government department taking a microscope to their delivery to understand how significant reductions in expenditure can be made. And if we are naive enough to think that smaller voluntary sectors organisations will somehow be immune to the cuts then we have a shock coming.

The abolition of the NTA is but a mere detail in the systemic shift that is coming in how drug treatment is delivered and commissioned.

And whilst we might want to challenge the speed of it, the economic or political reasoning or the sense of it all we don't have time.

I have a proverb on my wall that says 'those who think it cannot be done should step back and let the rest of us get on with the job'. If ever there was as time for us to take a deep breath and get on with the job it's now. And that job for me and all at Phoenix Futures is to continue to do all in our power to deliver services that help people along that pathway to recovery.

 

At Phoenix Futures we have decided on some important principles that we believe will allow us to navigate the choppy waters ahead.

Firstly and most importantly we are going to use our 40 year old resolve that has not changed, has not waivered and in fact grows stronger by the day that we, Phoenix, can make a difference and play an important and vital role in the recovery agenda.

Then we're going to do what we have done many times through our history and indeed we ask our service users to do everyday; we are going to change our mindsets and accept a new reality.

We are going to accept that people will have less money to spend on services, that they are going to want more from their providers for less and that they are going to be resistant to spend money on drug and alcohol services when they perceive they have more pressing needs of more deserving people.

What does this mean for us as a sector? My view is that we should understand the needs of our local communities and show how delivering drug and alcohol treatment can help those communities.

We need to:

Stop looking in and start looking out
Stop thinking we know all the answers and start listening to what our commuities tell us
Stop thinking about recovery in isolation and start thinking about how we can contribute to someone's overall rehabilitation

Why?

Because recovery doesn't start when people enter our services, it starts before they come to us and it ends after they leave us.

What we hope to give them whilst they are with us are the tools to move on with confidence to their next stage of recovery. For the sector to be indispensible we need to understand how each of our services contribute to that recovery, the part we play in that process. Once we are clear of that we will be better placed to ensure we continue to deliver services to the most vulnerable in our society.

Localism isn't an election fad that will go away, it is deeply entrenched in all the major parties thinking. It saves money by reducing central government quangoes and bureaucracies, it empowers local government to make decisions about how to spend their money and what issues to address.

But the world is changing and we need to ensure that we can respond to that. This doesn't mean we need to change what we do fundamentally but it is a change in how we think of ourselves.

 

We are all, I am sure, busy trying to work out what the future will bring for our organisations and the sector. Whilst some think it foolhardy to make predictions at such times of uncertainty it is my view that as the Chief Executive that is what I am paid to do. So here we go, this week's predictions on the challenges of the future:

The first is we are entering a period of sustained cuts and financial constraint. The harsh truth is that we are about to enter the most difficult time the sector has ever faced.

Reduced public spending means that all public sector services are going to feel the pain. We will be competing with other services for a drastically reduced amount of money. The argument won't be about harm reduction or abstinence – it will be about whether to fund the local needle exchange or the local nursery. Whether to keep the local old peoples' home open or the local rehab. These are going to be hard decisions for local politicians to make.

Our new government will be focused on reducing the public debt. Regardless of any ideological thinking or promises made through the election, decisions will be taken within that framework.

The cuts will be harsh, it will affect us all on a personal level and our organisation's income. We need to be preparing ourselves now for what that might mean. So the first feature of our future is significantly less money.

The second feature of our future is localism and the big society.

It might be being portrayed as a Tory fad but it is a deeply held ideological belief that can be seen to permeate all Tory social policy. Whether it creates Cameron's vision of an army of volunteers and community workers striving to make the difference in the most deprived areas, only time will tell. But the tangible difference will be that local government will be given more power to make decisions for themselves without the interference of central government, this will be achieved by a radical devolution of power. That will also mean financial autonomy for those local authorities that can prove their competency.

The third feature of our future is the 'rehabilitation revolution'; the coalition government's commitment to rehabilitating offenders including those with drug related offences. That gives us a signal that funding for services we deliver will be given on a commitment that we can reduce crime and improve our communities. We will not be able to rely on central government to ensure that drug and alcohol services exist in our communities, we will need to convince local communities short of cash that our services are worth continued investment, that our service users deserve continued support, that what we do contributes to the rehabilitation revolution that the government wants to achieve.

So less money, more local decision making and a focus on rehabilitation - this is the external environment we all need to respond to.

 

At Phoenix Futures, as with most other substance misuse providers, our ambition for people we work with stems from our belief that everyone has the potential to end their dependency and rebuild their lives. Whilst we deliver abstinence based services we don't believe this prevents us from delivering harm reduction services. The process of recovery is a personal one, defined by individual aspirations. It isn't for me to choose how someone achieves their recovery. Our job as providers is to ensure there are sufficient choices for those seeking treatment, at all points in the recovery journey.

As simple as I think it is, the debate within the sector is unlikely to go away. It seems to get more febrile each week, with groups clambering to come up with their own definition of recovery that is better than anyone else's. With calls for 2010 to be the year of Recovery and aspirations that any new Government will bring resurgence in abstinence based services, the drug sector is at risk of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Debate about how we improve the effectiveness of what we do is of course essential. However, this doesn't need to be done in the public domain. At a time when public finances are under pressure we should be demonstrating our effectiveness not airing our disagreements in public.

My fear is that the argument about recovery will be a comfortable cul–de-sac for us to retreat into and we will miss the bigger more serious job at hand; understanding the needs and wants of our service users not our politicians, and demonstrating that at times of recession we need continued investment in substance misuse services and that they can in turn deliver real and lasting benefits to individuals and communities alike.

 

Despite all the rhetoric in the lead up to the election the manifestos tell us that substance misuse policy is not a major policy priority for any party. Of course drugs and alcohol provision is mentioned in both Labour and Conservative manifestos but when you get past the posturing on classification of drugs what do each party offer us:

Labour promises to:

• Switch investment towards those programmes that are shown to sustain drug-free lives and reduce crime
• Treble alcohol treatment places to cover all persistent criminals where alcohol is identified as a cause of their crimes

The Conservative Party promise to:

• Give courts the power to use abstinence-based Drug Rehabilitation Orders to help offenders kick drugs once and for all
• Pilot a scheme to create Prison and Rehabilitation Trusts so that just one organisation is responsible for helping to stop a criminal re-offending
• Apply our payment by results reforms to the youth justice system; engage with specialist organisation to provide education, mentoring and drug rehabilitation programmes to help young offenders go straight

Representation of our sector:
Paternity rights of fathers get more words than the policy on drugs and alcohol together and other social policy agendas - mental health, residential care for the elderely, family support - all get major manifesto commitment far outweighing the needs of those seeking substance misuse services.

In my view we have no one to blame but ourselves for this.

Until we start speaking as one voice, clear of what we deliver and why, recognising we have the same values and that our differences are our advantage we will fail to convince anyone we are a sector worth prioritising .

 

What makes Phoenix Futures unique is our combination of staff, service users, volunteers, Board members, commissioners and stakeholders. The dynamic that happens between those individuals on a daily basis is what defines us an organisation. There is something that binds us together; culture, values, a shared experience. You see it in how staff and service users work with each
other.

The one thing I can rely on when anyone visits our services is that they will come back with an overwhelming sense that they have witnessed something special. That doesn't mean we can't do it better, that doesn't mean we should be complacent, but witnessing that specialness is something that drives us through the most difficult days.

It is often hard to put your finger on what that Phoenix uniqueness is. At our New Years Honours ceremony in January we had a glimpse of it:

• How teams work together to deliver more than they would be able to on their own

• How people go that extra mile over and above their day job because they can see how to make a difference

• How people driven by their own experiences want to share what they have learnt

• How people are willing to give their time unpaid as volunteers because they believe in what we do

• How proud our staff are of the organisation they work for

• How we understand our limitations and seek effective partnerships bringing together the skills of two organisations to deliver what we couldn't do on our own

• How people invest time and energy in developing themselves so they can be more effective in what they do

Put all that individuality, drive, ambition, passion, commitment and experience together and you get what Phoenix Futures is.

 

Sometimes I think this drug and alcohol treatment sector is a hard sector to work in. Not just because it seems to be the last male bastion of the social care field but because in places it is entrenched in ideology that stops it from presenting itself at its best.

Regardless of what political party comes into power the new government will be focused on reducing the public debt. Regardless of any ideological thinking decisions will be taken within that framework, David Cameron is committed to drug rehabilitation, but regardless of his personal thinking he has said that his government's success will be measured on how successful he is in reducing this country's debt. That is his priority and will be the same for any government.

The emergency budget after the election in May will be harsh, it will effect us all on a personal level and our organisations' income. We need to be preparing ourselves now for what that might mean.

We also need to be speaking as one voice, clear of what we deliver and why, recognising we have the same values and that our differences are our advantage.

 

I often say that Phoenix Futures has recovery in its DNA.

A bold statement and one I continually seek to test in our services.

My guess is that the definition of recovery is as varied amongst those that deliver services as it is amongst those that receive them. It's that individual nature of addiction that makes it so challenging to achieve and maintain. But is there a recovery gene that can be traced through all of our services and if so how can we detect it?

My view is that our ambition for people we work with stems from our belief that everyone has the potential to end their dependency and rebuild their lives. Whilst we deliver abstinence based services we don't believe this prevents us from delivering harm reduction services. The process of recovery is a personal one, defined by individual aspirations. Our job as providers is to ensure there are sufficient choices for those seeking treatment, at all points in the recovery journey.

The debate within the sector is unlikely to go away with the dawning of a new decade. With calls for 2010 to be the year of Recovery and aspirations that a new Conservative Government will bring resurgence in abstinence based services, the drug sector is at risk rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

We are about to enter a very different world for drug treatment with reduced public spending and a further devolving of power to local communities. Its not just the substance misuse sector that will feel the pressure, all third sector organisations will see themselves operating in a very different environment over the next four years. That challenges us all to ensure we properly demonstrate the value of what we do. As a sector we bring about real and effective change to individuals and communities and we do this by providing a full range of services that respond to varied and diverse needs. Under localism it is local communities, influenced by local politicians that will be making decisions regarding what services are prioritised within increasingly reduced budgets.

The value of what we do can be seen evidenced by real improvements in health housing education employment and crime reduction. Let us not allow our ideological disagreements overshadow that.

 

This month has seen the first of our 40th Birthday celebrations in Sheffield. Rather than having a big national party we have decided to go local - letting regions and areas celebrate in whatever way they want to through the course of the next year.

It was quite fitting that Sheffield was the location for the first celebration. Whilst our birthplace was London it was expansion in the north that took us national. Fifteen years after the establishment of the first Phoenix House in the UK in London, Sheffield Residential Service was opened followed by Tyneside and the Wirral. It was also in Sheffield that we developed our first community service, the Horizons project in partnership with probation. From there on in we have grown from strength to strength in the north developing a range of services that have the ethos of recovery as their core; regardless of whether they are delivering harm reduction or abstinence services; in the community or in prison. Today we have a balanced split between our residential community and prison services. This has been a purposeful aim, because we believe that our ability to provide a diverse range of provision is critical to our mission.

With that in mind it is slightly depressing that yet again the sector has been challenged to evidence its worth and demonstrate that the £384m spent on treatment provides value for money. The National Treatment Agency published its annual report and as we would expect it shows a significantly higher spend on community and harm reduction services than on residential services. The BBC reported that of the 270,000 people accessing treatment last year just 4,600 or 2% were able to access residential treatment.

At Phoenix Futures, we don't place different modalities of treatment in opposing corners. Residential or community based services, whether abstinence or harm reduction focused, shouldn't be seen as alternatives, they are part of a holistic treatment system that offer choice and progression for people. If a treatment system is ambitious for its service users it will understand that whilst recovery is a hard thing to achieve, it is achievable if we respond to different needs of people appropriately.

It isn't for me, or for us, to choose how someone recovers. If we are going to do our best by those that seek our help we have to use every means we can, whatever it takes within our professional capacity to support people to get to their goal.

So today we look like a very different organisation to the Phoenix House of 40 years ago, but the thread running through our history, the thing that defines us as 'Phoenix', is and I hope will always be our belief in every individual's ability to recover from addiction.