St Mungo’s Recovery College – online for our clients

    By Holly Smith, Strategic Marketing Officer

    St Mungo’s Recovery College offers our clients the opportunity to engage with learning, training and employment, and to rebuild their lives.

    When the pandemic began, we were in the middle of making a film about a proposed move to a new Recovery College base in London.

    But if there’s anything that I’m sure we’ve all learned in 2020, it’s that every tale can take you somewhere you didn’t expect.

    So we used the opportunity for clients to talk about how the Recovery College responded to the pandemic by moving its classes online.

    The four people involved, Adrian, AJay, Charles, Mincer, plus our Digital Inclusion Coordinator James, have shared their creativity and resilience every step of the way during this strange time.

    They adapted to new technology, learning to work differently and navigated connections – both badly behaved internet ones, and the welcome surprises of those connections forged with others as a result of the pandemic. 

    AJay said: “I am glad to be part of [the film] as I really valued what St Mungo’s is doing for our community. I hope that the organisers of the digital courses continue to thrive in making sure that everyone feels valued in the community so both old and new students enjoy the experience of taking part in more classes as they get to meet more students and tutors.” 

    St Mungo’s Recovery College is a completely fundraised service, made possible by the generosity of our partners and donors. Pre pandemic, there were a number of College bases in London and Bristol with another set to open in Leicester.

    By early June there were 24 Remote Recovery College activities for our clients to choose from, with 15 regular weekly group sessions, in addition to personalised progression coaching and employment support.

    The most popular individual sessions have been the happiness and wellbeing project and creative writing, delivered through Google Hangouts and over the phone. ‘Music, arts and culture’, ‘health, wellbeing and personal development’ and Maths and English have all been popular classes. By June we had delivered 60 one to one digital support sessions to enable people to engage with the College and use their digital devices to stay connected.

    One Recovery College client was supported by a progression coach to sign up to an online Level 2 diploma in counselling. This was something he had wanted to do for a number of months, to work towards his long-term ambition to work in mental health.

    Reta Robinson, St Mungo’s Director of Fundraising, said: “The way the Recovery College adapted so nimbly to the challenges of the pandemic has been a real reflection of the innovation and resourcefulness of our staff, clients and volunteers.”

    Gavin Benn, Head of St Mungo’s Recovery College, said: “It’s great to see more and more clients joining our remote Recovery College programme and to hear how it has supported their journey to learn, grow and be inspired, despite often challenging personal circumstances. My thanks to all those involved in making this fantastic film.”

    The Recovery College is running a summer programme until 28 August and then starts its autumn term on 5 October, until 27 November.

    Find out more about our Recovery College here, and watch more on YouTube. Thanks also to film makers Chocolate Films.

    The Independent Review on Drugs is an opportunity for bold change

    Today, St Mungo’s put forward a written submission to the Independent Review on Drugs by Dame Carol Black. Here Emma Cookson, Senior Policy and Public Affairs Officer at St Mungo’s explains what this review means and the primary calls St Mungo’s is making towards it.

    This is the second part of the review which is examining drug prevention, treatment and recovery (the findings of the first part were published in February this year).This is a huge opportunity to reflect the needs of St Mungo’s clients, and the many other hundreds of thousands who are homeless and face multiple layers of disadvantage.

    Sadly, as we are all too aware, there is a significant relationship between homelessness and drug and alcohol problems, which becomes even more pronounced amongst people sleeping rough. Data from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN), a multi-agency database recording information about people sleeping rough in London, shows that 62% of people sleeping rough had a recorded drug or alcohol need in 2018-19.

    And it’s not just that people who are sleeping rough have a higher likelihood of drug use – they are also more likely to die from it. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows that in 2018, 726 people died while rough sleeping, with a staggering 40% of all those deaths related to drug poisoning. And it’s getting worse. The St Mungo’s Knocked Back report earlier this year showed that the number of deaths caused by drug poisoning increased by 135% between 2013 and 2018 and by 55% in just one year in 2018. This is an alarming increase.

    For many of our clients, drug use, alcohol use, poor mental health and homelessness are interlocking and mutually reinforcing problems. CHAIN data shows that over half of all people with a recorded drug and alcohol problem have a co-occurring mental health problem. These problems create a vicious cycle from which it is hard to escape. If you just address one of these without tackling the other, you are unlikely to be successful. But this is all too often what the current system does.

    A St Mungo’s Manager set out the disjoint between systems:

    Someone goes into prison and whilst they’re in prison they’re detoxed. But then they’re released and told to go to housing department who say they’re not priority need. They’re then picked up by an outreach team and the only place available is a hostel where there are lots of drug users. This isn’t going to help them in their recovery.

    The vicious circle continues. 

    Health, homelessness, and drugs and alcohol services are all designed and funded as if people fit into one box, rather than the reality that people’s problems are complex and interwoven. They cannot be addressed one-by-one but need to be approached holistically.

    This is why in our written submission to the Black Review we’re calling for the following:

    • Integrated, person centred and holistic services.

    To best support people we need integrated support and housing pathways, with a treatment package arranged for them in a way which works for them in that particular point in their recovery journey. One of the best ways to do this is through increasing joint commissioning and explore longer contracts. This would help health, homelessness and drug and alcohol services to work better together and encourage them to treat clients holistically rather than providing insular support related only to one need, whilst clients are caught in the gaps in between services. Longer contracts provide the time to build practice and culture change.

    • Access to affordable and appropriate housing.

    Access to affordable and appropriate housing can act as both prevention and cure for drug misuse. Therefore we want the Government to improve access to truly affordable housing by increasing investment to build 90,000 homes for social rent every year for 15 years, and improving security for tenants in the private rented sector by, for instance, re-aligning Local Housing Allowance Rates to cover the 50th percentile of local rents. There also needs to be an expansion in Housing First services (backed by sufficient funding) and an increase in supported housing provision. This would help prevent individuals from becoming homeless, and rapidly relieve their homelessness if they are forced to sleep rough.

    • Further funding for drug support services.

    There needs to be more funding for services which are interlinked with drug misuse, such as homelessness support services, to support an integrated approach which looks at the whole system and situations which both cause and exacerbate drug misuse. Previous research from St Mungo’s has shown that £1 billion less is being spent on housing related support services per year (which help many people with complex needs, such as drug misuse, gain and retain accommodation) than a decade ago. We are therefore recommending that the Government invest an extra £1 billion a year in services that prevent homelessness and end rough sleeping. This money should be ring-fenced so it can’t be spent on anything else. This echoes our calls in our Home for Good campaign. 

    This review is timely. In the midst of this global pandemic, the health inequalities suffered by those who are homeless have become even starker. This is a chance to put forward bold solutions, which recognise the need to see drug prevention and recovery as interwoven with other systems and services. People aren’t boxes — they have messy, complex lives. We need a whole systems approach which recognises this, so that we can effectively help people.

    Take the lead

    And we’re off! Are you ready to Take the Lead and tackle homelessness for St Mungo’s? 

    August 1 marked the start of our Take the Lead Challenge. For the last few months we’ve been urging dog owners across the UK to sign up, get active and Take the Lead in helping to end homelessness this summer.

    The challenge is for dog owners to walk the length of a marathon (26.2 miles) with their furry companions over the 31 days of August.   

    Meet Dexter

    Who’s getting involved?

    To help achieve our fundraising goals, the challenge is being supported by leading brands Lily’s Kitchen and Nationwide Building Society, as well as dog loving comedian and television presenter Paul O’Grady.

    Representing the canine contingent, we’ve also got Instagram sensations, Marcel the Corgi and Bun the Sausage Dog onboard, who along with other participants are aiming to raise £12,000, and walk a collective total of 4,266 miles – one mile for every person found rough sleeping on a single night in England last year.

    Why dog walking?

    As one of the leading homelessness charities in England to accept pets into their hostels, here at St Mungo’s, we recognise the hugely powerful and emotional support that animals can bring to someone who is sleeping on the streets. During this pandemic, many people have valued the companionship and support of their pets at an unprecedented time of loneliness and isolation.

    Most recently, St Mungo’s teams have been working round the clock to support vulnerable rough sleepers out of hotels, where they have been self-isolating during the pandemic, and into permanent accommodation.

    So far, more than 300 people have been helped to move into longer term accommodation, with more being supported by the charity every single day and this is just one of the many wonderful projects that your fundraising efforts will go towards helping.

    Meet Bun

    What are our supporters saying? 

    Petra Salva OBE, Director of Rough Sleepers, Ex-Offenders and Migrant Services at St Mungo’s says: “I am signing up to Take the Lead with my dog, Nero. We will be taking on the marathon distance virtually, but united as a team to help end homelessness. St Mungo’s are able to reduce barriers for someone coming off the streets by accepting pets into our hostels and we recognise the powerful emotional support a dog can provide.”

    Paul O’Grady says:

    “This challenge is a fantastic way to get outside with our dogs whilst helping to raise money for St Mungo’s and the brilliant work they do. As a dog lover myself, I know all too well about the incredible impact that they can have on people’s lives, especially during difficult times like these, and I am very pleased to be supporting such a great cause.” 

    Samantha Crossley, Head of Marketing at Lily’s Kitchen says:

    “Lily’s Kitchen is delighted to support St Mungo’s with their Take the Lead Challenge, which highlights the scale of homelessness in the UK today, with 4,266 rough sleepers in England alone.”

    Not only that, but Take the Lead celebrates the special bond between dogs and their pup-parents, the special moments spent together each day exploring the world side by side. Lily’s Kitchen understands this relationship implicitly, as do St Mungo’s, which is why they ensure their clients are not separated from their beloved pets which can be an issue when finding safe accommodation.

    “This is one of the reasons why we have loved supporting them over the years and look forward to doing so in the future.”

    Meet Peggy

    Is there still time to sign up with my dog?

    Of course! Dog walkers can Take the Lead to support vulnerable people by visiting Take the Lead for more information on how to sign up. 

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