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.