EFTC list post:
It is with deep regret that I write to inform you that our colleague and EFTC Board Member, David Turner, has passed away after a long struggle with cancer.
I am personally devastated by this news and I am sure that many EFTC members and friends of EFTC will be similarly upset.
David was a courageous and loyal friend, a determined campaigner, a powerful and consistent friend to the TC Movement and a decent, compassionate and funny man.
I first met David when he worked at New Horizon (with Jon Snow, now stalwart of Channel 4 News) in the early 1970s. We later worked closely together for many years when he succeeded Bob Searchfield as head of the Standing Conference on Drug
Abuse (SCODA). As head of SCODA, David was influential in changing the face of drug policy in the UK and beyond. Amongst his many achievements, he was the force behind the publication of the ACMD's Treatment and Rehabilitation report - a report that heralded
the remarkable expansion of drug treatment services in the 1980s. He was mentor to Walter Lyons in the establishment of Inward House in Lancaster and served as Chair of the Management Committee of that TC. He served also for many years on the boards of many
UK TCs: Phoenix House, Alpha House, Suffolk House and Ley Community.
It was David who first recognised the danger to the field of the new Community Care legislation. He rightly argued that the failure to ring-fence drug and alcohol budgets would decimate and marginalise the residential sector in particular. He campaigned hard
on that issue - a protest profile which almost certainly cost him his position at SCODA (SCODA subsequently merged with the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence [ISDD] to become DrugScope).
In the 1990s David worked with WHO, ICAA and CeIS Roma - Italy's first TC and became an influential and tireless contributor to the Vienna NGO Committee on Drugs. It was in this period also that David joined the EFTC Board, having been a
loyal and committed supporter since its inception.
Over the last 40 years David has been one of the most important figures in UK and European drug treatment and drug policy. But I will remember him as a kind, considerate and always supportive friend. David and I worked on many projects
over the years but I will remember the meals and the drinks, the uproarious music sessions - and I will miss him more than I can say.
Rowdy Yates
President
European Federation of Therapeutic Communities
The University of Stirling has been ranked in the top 12 of UK universities for graduate employment*.
94% of our 2012 graduates were in work and/or further study within six months of graduation.
*The Telegraph
The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159.
