Caffi CAIS

A new amenity for Llandudno is open for business and will be formally launched on 21^st July by Assembly Member, Janet Finch-Saunders.  Caffi CAIS is located on the Mostyn Broadway coach park, following refurbishment of the old structure which had been unused for some years.  Llandudno-based charity, CAIS, is behind the venture, which as well as providing a refreshment spot for residents and visitors, will offer employment and training opportunities for individuals recovering from problems with drugs and alcohol.  Development of the site followed a successful bid to the Welsh Government Substance Misuse Action Fund, which was supported by both Conwy CBC and the Llandudno Town Council.

The café offers a range of freshly-prepared meals, snacks and drinks, and is already proving popular with both coach travellers and local residents.  Under the supervision of experienced managers, staff undergo an intensive 13-week course in all aspects of retail catering, including food hygiene and preparation, health and safety, customer service and basic business skills.  The aim is to enable trainees to hold down jobs in the many hotels and catering establishments in the area.  The café will operate as a social enterprise and profits will be re-invested in client services.

CAIS Chief Executive, Clive Wolfendale, said “We are delighted to have the café up and running to meet the busy summer period.  We have been able to revitalise a rather forlorn part of the coach park and offer a cheerful welcome for visitors to the town.  The venue is already very busy and our cakes are simply the best!  The project will enable individuals to develop the skills necessary to live lives away from benefits and dependency, and to become economically productive and self-sufficient.  The staff are responding brilliantly to the opportunity.  CAIS is very grateful to all the partner agencies who have made this project possible.”

The opening celebration will begin at 11.00 a.m. on 21^st July and will feature a specially-commissioned balloon model and cake made by the team.  Entertainment will be provided by members of the Llandudno Youth Theatre, whose production of Wiz opens at Venue Cymru that day.

Rehab

A battle is raging in England between opposing opinions on the best way of treating people with drug and alcohol problems.  The letter (below) published in the Daily Telegraph last Saturday outlines the argument.  Experience that CAIS has gained in 30 years or so of delivering treatment services points to a clear and optimistic reality - properly managed residential rehabilitation as part of a holistic programme of support and integration can enable people to get off drink and drugs, and stay off.

Helping addicts quit
SIR – We represent leading voluntary and private sector abstinence-based rehabilitation centres in England. We were concerned by the revelations in Kathy Gyngell’s report, published by the Centre for Policy Studies, Breaking the Habit: why the state should stop dealing drugs and start doing rehab (“Benefits and treatment for drug addicts cost £3.6 billion a year”, telegraph.co.uk, June 19).

We call on the Government to make abstinence-based rehabilitation central to the implementation of its drugs policy. Fewer than 2 per cent of addicts seeking help to quit drugs are currently referred to rehab. An immediate goal of 25 per cent is feasible. Such a commitment is necessary to turn around the tanker of dependency.

In the two years before the general election, an average of one rehab unit closed each month. A progressive decline in statutory referrals, with the loss of about 1,000 beds, continues. Yet taxpayers are funding the continued dependency of the 98 per cent of addicts in so-called treatment, to the tune of billions of pounds. This process will continue if the Coalition leaves current commissioning arrangements for drugs and alcohol services in place under the direction of the National Treatment Agency, soon to be transferred to Public Health England.

Unless the Coalition takes action quickly, the Prime Minister’s call to help addicts to become clean, free of drugs and build new lives, will be thwarted.

Deirdre Boyd
CEO, Addiction Recovery Foundation
Ed Smith
Director, Acorn Treatment and Housing
Peter Walker
CEO, Addiction Recovery Agency
Richard Johnson
Director, ANA Treatment Centres
Ges Schofield
Manager, Ark House
Derek Mace
CEO, Bosence and Boswyns
Gina Dormer
CEO, Broadreach Group
Brian Dudley
CEO, Broadway Lodge
Clive Wolfendale
CAIS Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation
Simon Stephens
Director of case work, Addictions UK
Barnaby Guthrie
CEO, Clinical Partners
Chip Somers
CEO, Focus12
Wendy Dawson
CEO, Ley Community
Anthony Massouras
Chairman, Mimosa Healthcare Group
Ruth Allonby
CEO, Mount Carmel
Jan and Carl de Vera Davey
CEOs, Open Minds
Carl Edwards
Director, Park View Project
James Peacock
Senior statutory coordinator, Perry Clayman Project
John Grady
Director, Pierpoint Addiction Treatment
Steve Spiegel
Director, Providence Projects
Arlene Rodgers
Director, Quinton House
Jon Harman
Director, Ravenscourt Trust
Gavin Cooper
Managing director, Trust the Process
Tom Kirkwood
CEO, TTP Recovery Communities
Amanda Thomas
CEO, Western Counselling
Ken Wiltshire
Director, Yeldall Manor
Matthew Franzidis
Chief operating officer, Priory Healthcare

Drug and Alcohol Charities in Joint Working

CAIS and Kaleidoscope, the two largest drug and alcohol charities in Wales, have formed a collaborative partnership in the delivery of substance misuse services across much of Wales.  North Wales based CAIS and South Wales based Kaleidoscope have agreed to work together in the development of treatment projects and in sharing back office support.  This will create greater efficiency leading to improved healthcare for client groups.

The two organisations commenced joint delivery of drug and alcohol services in the Powys area in April, following a successful bid to local commissioners.

CAIS Chair, Dr Dafydd Alun Jones, said “It is increasingly important that charities demonstrate their willingness to work together.  The complementary strengths of the two organisations will enable a wider range of services to be provided across the whole of Wales”.

Kaleidoscope Chair, Dr Medwin Hughes, said “It is vital that in Wales we look to creating the best possible services to vulnerable people.  The combined strength of CAIS and Kaleidoscope will mean that in Wales we have an agency that can demonstrate the best in drug and alcohol treatment in the UK”.

For further information please contact:

CAIS Chief Executive, Clive Wolfendale, on 01492 863007.

Kaleidoscope Chief Executive, Martin Blakebrough, on 01633 245012.

www.cais.co.uk

www.kaleidoscopeproject.org.uk

New Year's Resolution

I guess most of us have made a promise to ourselves somehow to be better people in 2011.  Having already lost an extraordinary amount of weight and tidied up the garden, I was looking around myself for a new theme this year.  I was therefore very pleased the other day to come across some material which is used by the CAIS Training team in delivering its day programme of activities for people recovering from substance misuse problems.  The Five Ways to Wellbeing is a simple philosophy of how to make life a little more enjoyable and fulfilling.  I defy anybody not to take something from it.  See what you think?  Happy New Year.

Five Ways to Wellbeing

A review of the most up-to-date evidence suggests that building the following five actions into our day-to-day lives is important for well-being:

Connect...
With the people around you.  With family, friends, colleagues and neighbours.  At home, work, school or in your local community.  Think of these as the cornerstones of your life and invest time in developing them.  Building these connections will support and enrich you every day.

Be Active...
Go for a walk or run.  Step outside.  Cycle.  Play a game.  Garden.  Dance.  Exercising makes you feel good.  Most importantly, discover a physical activity you enjoy and that suits your level of mobility and fitness.

Take Notice...
Be curious.  Catch sight of the beautiful.  Remark on the unusual.  Notice the changing seasons.  Savour the moment, whether you are walking to work, eating lunch or talking to friends.  Be aware of the world around you and what you are feeling.  Reflecting on your experiences will help you appreciate what matters to you.

Keep Learning...
Try something new.  Rediscover an old interest.  Sign up for that course.  Take on a different responsibility at work.  Fix a bike.  Learn to play an instrument or how to cook your favourite food.  Set a challenge you will enjoy achieving.  Learning new things will make you more confident as well as being fun.

Give...
Do something nice for a friend, or a stranger.  Thank someone.  Smile.  Volunteer your time.  Join a community group.  Look out, as well as in.  Seeing yourself, and your happiness, linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and creates connections with the people around you.

Centre for Wellbeing, NEF (the New Economics Foundation)

Will Somebody Get A Grip?

"We are fighting Germany, Austria and drink; and as far as I can see, the greatest of these three deadly foes is drink".  Thus spoke David Lloyd George in 1915.  The war on alcohol abuse is not new; neither is the war on drugs.  In the mid nineteenth century Britain went to war with China in order to secure the right to trade opium through its ports.  In a painful reversal of principle, British soldiers are currently dying in Afghanistan partly to deny the Taliban a similar trading opportunity.  The brave troops that make it back will quite likely bring with them a drink problem.

In both wars, drugs and alcohol, you can choose your battlefield: moral, religious, medical or economic.  The supportive arguments marshalled by each side are complex, deeply held and often ferocious.  If you stick your head above the barricade, you will definitely attract a bullet; but there are some still prepared to run the risk.  The evidence assembled by Dr David Nutt and his colleagues recently in The Lancet to demonstrate the crisis of alcohol misuse is compelling.  Not only is the work expertly constructed, as you would expect from some of the UK's most gifted scientists, it is delivered with conviction borne of frustration.  They are clearly cheesed off with being consistently ignored by governments which ask the question but don't like the answer.  There are currently two overwhelming truths dominating the arena of substance misuse in the UK.  Firstly, the war on drugs currently classed as illegal is not being won.  Even in countries where death is the penalty for drug dealing, law enforcement alone is ineffective in dissuading suppliers.  Secondly, taken in the round, alcohol is now the most damaging drug in the UK.  The combination of these awful realities, given the overall impact on society, presents one of the key challenges of our age; a challenge which is being quite deliberately ducked.  The real answer, as Bill Clinton famously recognised, lies within the economics.

The war on smoking tobacco is being won, and the war on alcohol misuse is being lost, largely on the economic battlefield.  Cigarettes are priced to discourage, whilst lager is cheaper than water.  Our best hope of inducing more responsible attitudes towards other recreational drugs is to learn the lessons of both success and failure in these domains.  The economics of alcohol consumption in the UK are managed by the major drink companies.  Ever cheaper products, targeted marketing and aggressive promotions have been highly successful, if you happen to manufacture alcoholic drinks.  It's been a nightmare for lots of other people.  Much worse still, the entire economic strategy for drug consumption is in the hands of violent psychopaths, be they Colombian barons, Helmand warlords or Manchester gangsters.  It is ridiculous that we have relegated such massive threats to health, rule of law and social well-being to these patently self-interested stakeholders.  It is time for equally hard-headed but more benign generals to take the high ground.  We need state intervention in both these commodities.  As the government has just painfully realised, some markets you can happily leave alone and some require determined regulation.  Both junk bonds and junk are firmly in the latter category.

After 34 years in the trench of attrition that is policing substance misuse I retired to tend the wounded - and dying.  From both perspectives I know that hundreds of thousands of people in this country are suffering the consequences of failure to confront the fundamentals of drug and alcohol economics.  Will somebody get a grip?

prevention is better than Prevention

The work of US campaigner Barbara Harris and Project Prevention has recently captured the news headlines.  The scheme is designed to tackle the problem of children born to drug and alcohol addicts and offers cash to users who agree to be sterilised.

There is without question a significant risk to any child parented by a drug or alcohol user.  In extreme cases babies can be born with an inherited drug dependency.  There are a number of ways the problem can be confronted, including education, early counselling intervention and long-term contraception.  Project Prevention goes significantly further than this by seeking to dissuade anyone with a drug or alcohol problem from ever having children.  I think, however well-intentioned this scheme, the project is fundamentally misguided.  A young man or woman with a profound substance habit is by definition in no fit state to make a life-changing decision of this magnitude.  This particularly applies to women, where the sterilisation process is unlikely to be reversible.  It is also the case, and we in CAIS know this, that substance misusers can turn their lives around to the extent that they can become competent and loving parents.

I would ask anyone tempted to approve of Project Prevention to consider what the average drug addict is likely to do with the £200 received in exchange for sterilisation.  It is in fact asking vulnerable young women to exchange their womb for 20 bags of heroin.  This is not a piece of social engineering we should be embracing in the UK.

New Year, New Site

Welcome to the new CAIS website.  We have tried to make our new internet presence attractive, informative and easy to use for people seeking help and advice.

The launch of the new site coincides exactly with the anniversary of my appointment to CAIS.  It has been a fascinating, testing and stimulating experience for me to be part of shaping the work of CAIS at a time of enormous change in public services.

Substance misuse persists as one of the key social challenges of our time - in fact its impact on all our lives grows by the day.  In the face of losing job, support and hope, people respond in different ways.  Some withdraw from the world they knew; some commit crime; some turn to drugs, alcohol or other consolations.  We are entering a period of retrenchment in which, according to the TUC chief, Britain may become a "dark, brutish and frightening place".  I certainly believe the next few years will require all of us, through our work or through our social connections, to look for the signs and symptoms of despair.  There are choices to be made.  For individuals it might mean the choice between fighting to thrive, and simply giving up.  For communities, there may be a judgment between inclusion and ostracisation.  For governments, there may be the opportunity to rethink policies that, driven by economic opportunity on the one hand and coercion on the other, have led to a cycle of nihilistic and costly disregard.

What is sure is that CAIS and its partner agencies can have a critical role in taking people out of despondency, tackling the culture of substance and service dependency, and changing opinions about the way we tackle substance misuse and the individuals who fall victim to it.

I am privileged to work alongside many talented and dedicated individuals who are capable of transforming lives; and I look forward to continuing the journey with them.