We’ve all been there. One drink leads to two, which leads to three and, before you know it, a Sunday hangover looms. We say never again but, maybe a few weeks later, the same thing happens.
For some of us, these cycles are part of life. They don’t become a problem. But a range of factors, from genetic to social, can entrap us in cycles of addiction.
And while in Britain alcohol abuse remains relatively normalised, the worst addictions leave too many at the mercy of harmful drugs.
It won’t always be the case that people will recognise that they need help — they need to be recognised as needing help.
And that’s where our city’s outreach teams step in: to bridge the vital connection between services that can and do help with alcohol and drug harm.
Since April 2020, Brighton and Hove City Council’s public health team has partnered with Change Grow Live (CGL) to provide these outreach services.
They’re the common thread that runs through our services for rough sleepers and the homeless, our criminal justice intervention team, as well as our supported accommodation and hostels.
But in partnership with our public health teams, they’re also embedded in our communities, reaching people vulnerable to chemsex, providing needle exchange, dedicated rehab and detox and supporting people into employment and their own private accommodation.
Behind every rough sleeper you see in the city is a complex story and a complex web of services trying to get them help.
If you’ve ever made a referral on StreetLink, it’s CGL at the other end, working hard to know that person’s story and providing the compassion and care they need to get them into a safe place.
This sometimes means a recovery pathway or co-ordinating with services in another city to get them safely back home.
Around 2,700 people are currently served by CGL. That’s 2,700 complex stories that have unravelled and been woven back together with care, compassion and new threads of hope.
In Brighton and Hove, such services are needed more than ever and we’ve asked the new government directly to continue their funding, letting them know the incredible difference they make to people’s lives and the health and wellbeing of our city.
Many drugs are made even more dangerous by unknown additives. And currently, the presence of nitazines in anything from cocaine to ketamine has created a new epidemic of overdoses and deaths.
Brighton and Hove Labour are driving new interventions, closer monitoring and even closer partnerships with the police and NHS in the face of this new challenge and existing ones.
We’re working at pace to deliver a homelessness health hub that can combine and enhance drug harm reduction and prevention measures under one roof.
We’re also exploring expanding the recovery and intervention service and our upcoming “drug and alcohol action plan” will flesh out further mitigations Labour will introduce to build on our vital accomplishments so far.
During my visits to our outreach services, I’m struck by the dedication of staff and the range of people they help.
Whether a banker or a busker, a team of dedicated professionals, some with lived experience, will help someone start or continue a journey of recovery.
But it’s to our city’s most vulnerable that these services lend the biggest hand. Those who’ve suffered domestic abuse, those without a home and those without hope.
CGL and the council will work for years with some complex cases, ensuring they have the support they need. And it works.
After the experience of this support, one resident of recovery hostel New Steine Mews imparted a simple wish: “Love each other.”
Thanks to the outreach and recovery services, they’ve left the hostel and entered a new life of grace, joy and hope. Something all of us strive for. Our outreach services bring people that much closer to living it.
Councillor Tristram Burden is a Labour member of Brighton and Hove City Council and the cabinet member for adult social care, public health and service transformation.
What simplistic, stereotypical and misguided view of such complex issue. This is clearly linking it to substance misuse. These types of narrative contributes to the issue. How was this allowed to be published by a Local Authority? This gentleman can’t be a public health specialist with these views.
I would agree that it is a complex issue, however, he only appears to be talking about one aspect of it here. I also note he eludes to it being a multifaceted issue, although I will admit, it is not explicitly stated. It’s clearly stated he’s just visited CGL, so he’s writing about his experience there.
There is, in fact, in a large majority of homelessness cases, a strong link to substance misuse, and these vulnerable people developing poor mental health; this is certainly true. The former is also used to gain a level of chemical control over vulnerable people, boosting criminality. So whilst it is not the full explanation of homelessness; encouraging conversation about arguably one of the main factors and how it is challenged is perfectly reasonable, in my opinion.
However, that doesn’t discount what you are saying, there are plenty of homeless people who are very much a product of bad luck or unfortunate circumstances. COVID did a number on several businesses, for example, and some people who are in homelessness services, are there simply because their business did not recover.
What waffle councillor.
Shouldn’t be on the streets. What impression does this give to visitors? Will they come back? The City’s largest income is from tourism that funds core services.
14 years of Tory Government cuts to Local Councils by up to 70% has left Councils with no solution to the homeless problem round the country. You’re correct, they shouldn’t be on the streets, not to appease tourists but for their own safety and to get them proper help.
Your solution is to just hide them away out of sight. Brilliant!
I remember a certain Home Sec. who declared that homelessness was a lifestyle choice. I know you can’t say anything against her, lest you receive the wrath of Regional, but I do hope you deplore unhelpful rhetoric like that when it’s aimed at gaining political clout, especially when we are considering people’s lives as the topic at hand. Rather undignified, otherwise.
Really they should be put on an island with no drink and drugs for a year and get rehab at the same time. They might actually stand a chance then. Instead we spend millions and millions locally, giving them money to buy more drugs and drink and plonk them in oriental place in a bedsit, enough to drive a nun to drink. The whole system is part of the problem
It’s an interesting point, I genuinely think the environment they are in contributes so heavily to being stuck in the addiction cycle. With narcotics being so readily accessible, and places like Oriental Place being known hotspots for criminals to advertise around, it certainly suggests that a fundamental part of the system needs to change.
Big money – top salary at Change Grow Live is between £200,000 and £250,000 and 33 staff get over £100,000.
Have a look and make up your own mind:
https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/3967052
Considering the scale of the charity, its objectives, and scope of practice in a specialist area, it’s one of those jobs I would confidently say should command a higher salary for the top job. There’s a whole phantasmagoria of nuance there one needs to know across many vastly different disciplines.
For the higher salaries, you should remember that doctors who specialise in addiction are very normally offered that level of salary; again perfectly normal. Although, I certainly can appreciate it is a lot of money.