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From: Therapeutic Communities [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rowdy Yates
Sent: 05 October 2011 11:45
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [EFTC] Oxford Conference Blogs

Hi List Members

Some of you will know that both Brian Morrison and I blogged about the EFTC Conference on the Wired-In website.  For those of you who don’t know about it Wried-In is an online recovery community and an absolutely tremendous resource for people in recovery.  It’s very straightforward to join – just log on to:  http://wiredintorecovery.org/

Anyway, I know a lot of EFTC members are not members of Wired-In so I thought that you might appreciate a copy of my blogs during the Oxford conference.  If not – well, that’s what the Delete button is for:

Day One. EFTC Conference

What a fabulous day. A terrific presentation from Keith Humphreys about the evidence base for AA and NA fellowships and why that matters for therapeutic communities. Also a great presentation from John Strang talking about how we need to start thinking as researchers and not just programme providers. A lot of food for thought there about how we might find opportunities for research in what we do from day to day.

Then there was George! More a force of nature than a speaker! His presentation was moving, angry passionate and full of hope. I could listen to his stuff all day. And the good news is that we have altered the programme to give him and John a further slot. Anyone coming to the Recovery Academy conference in Edinburgh is in for a serious treat!

The evening ended with the Gala Dinner. Anthony Slater (President of EFTC) presented the EFTC Award (an amazing sculpture by a Belgian sculptress) to Griffith Edwards. Griffith is the former editor of Addiction and former director of the National Addiction Centre. He’s also the guy who started the first Phoenix House in London. A truly heroic pioneer.

Then George De Leon gave the two National Champions awards to Bob Campbell and Steve Walker. Both Bob and Steve are TC graduates and both have gone on to make huge contributions to the recovery movement in general and TCs in particular. Well done Bob and Steve.

I’m exhausted now and we’ve already started day Two! Phew I’m not sure I’ll last the course.

More – much more later. Bye bye from sunny Oxford.

Day Two. EFTC Conference

Another brilliant day. I got the nervous bit over quickly by slating myself in at 9.00 before anyone was really awake and fit enough to challenge me! That’s the only advantage to organising the programme folks!

I was talking about addiction theory and what that might mean for retention. I think it went down quite well. Ilse Goethals from Gent followed with a really interesting presentation of her initial findings. But I think it’s probably fair to say that we were blown out of the water by Naya Arbiter’s hugely powerful presentation of her thoughts on therapeutic communities and power and her work at Amity.

The following sessions were all workshop or seminar so I only really saw a third of what was on offer. But what there was was fantastic.

In the late afternoon, we had an incredibly moving (at least it was for me) presentation about the development of the TC movement across Europe. There were some really early graduates there and some of the founding fathers. I am honoured to say that I was asked to conclude the celebration with a song specially written for the TC movement.

The rest of the day was mainly the dinner and a disco – not really my field so not really for me to comment upon. But all in all a fabulous second day.

Day Three. EFTC Conference

The third day was opened by the inestimable Eric Broekaert. Eric has been at the heart of the European TC movement since starting TC De Kiem in Belgium when he was still a PhD student!

Still lovable, funny, clever and erudite, Eric mapped out the current state-of-the-art on TC evidence and research and explained how it might be possible to go forward in ways that might satisfy even the hardest-headed scientist.

This was followed by two tremendous presentations from Rod Mullen of Amity and Teodora Groshkova of EMCDDA. All I can say is that at this conference we have been blessed with presentations from some of the best minds in the business.

This was followed by a Q&A discussion featuring John Strang, George De Leon, Rod Mullen, Naya Arbiter and Eric Broekaert. I chaired (or maybe MC’d) this session. The aim was to review the previous days and see if we could agree a way forward.

What a success. We effectively ended with a four-point plan and a commitment to taking the plan forward through a group of EFTC members and other TC supporters. I’m sure I’ll be writing more about this in the next month or so.

Finally, and – for me – most importantly, over the closing lunch we had a series of brief speeches from the organisers and then a tear-jerker!

Almost every resident – from Ley Community and Phoenix Futures took to the stage and talked about the impact of the conference on them and on their hopes for the future. They all talked about having been inspired by the passion and committment they had seen and committed to return to their respective communities and try to enthuse their peers.

They even – and this left me both gob-smacked and delighted – came up with two volunteers to be service-user representatives on our proposed four-part plan for the evidence base.

I don’t know about you, but in all my time in the field I don’t think I’ve come away from a conference with so much concrete stuff to take us forwards.

Thanks to the organisers, all the speakers and particularly to the residents (who were peerless for me). Roll on Prague 2013.

Feel free to forward this to anyone at the conference who is not a member of the list.

Rowdy Yates

Snr. Research Fellow

Scottish Addictiuon Studies

School of Applied Social Science

University of Stirling.

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