Latest news with #addictionrecovery
BBC News
a day ago
- Health
- BBC News
Lancashire: £10m boost for council drug and alcohol support services
Lancashire County Council has been handed more than £10m by the government to prevent drug and alcohol-related deaths and help those with addiction authority said the cash, which has been put together by consolidating other grants for services like recovery programs and housing schemes for vulnerable people, was one of the largest amounts allocated across England. A council spokesperson said it would be used to pay for services like mental health support for those with substance abuse problems and drug education in Councillor Daniel Matchett, who works as a mental health nurse, said the funding was welcome as he had seen the "devastation" caused by drugs first-hand. Councillors have approved the allocation of the £10m grant by the Department of Health and Social is aimed at funding improved treatment, cutting crime and preventing drug and alcohol-related said: "It is a significant amount of funding. "There is a real focus on improving the quality of treatment and making sure more people can access this, which will help prevent drug and alcohol-related deaths in the county."Among the services that will be supported by the grant are addiction recovery help out-of-hours as well as additional weekend support, and inpatient detox also includes funding for training to professionals in schools and improved support for those in the criminal justice system. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Lancashire on Sounds and follow BBC Lancashire on Facebook, X and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
CBC
3 days ago
- Health
- CBC
Peer support agency in Thunder Bay, Ont., readies for relocation, new supportive housing
Social Sharing A peer support agency in Thunder Bay, Ont., is relocating its drop-in centre, as it expands its services to include supportive housing on the south side of town. People Advocating for Change Through Empowerment (PACE), located at 510 Victoria Avenue E., is a central location for some of the city's most vulnerable. There, they can get food and free clothing, do their laundry, take a shower and connect with others in a safe environment. The organization has recently become involved in the province's new Homeless and Addiction Recovery Treatment Hub (HART) program, following the closure of the region's only supervised consumption site, Path 525, at the end of March. "We love this space. However, to make it work better with the new initiatives coming up by the government and for the initiatives going on in this business area, like the [Victoriaville] mall coming down, our people need a place to go," said Georgina McKinnon, PACE's executive director. In the coming weeks, PACE will relocate to 409 George St., directly across from Shelter House, remaining in the neighbourhood it's been serving for years. With the new space comes room for a dozen new supportive housing units, which McKinnon hopes become part of a continuum of care for people recovering from addiction, she said. "We're hoping to be one of the last steps, that people come out of recovery, go into more heavily-supported housing, down to lightly-supported housing," McKinnon explained. "We can help them out downstairs in PACE before they get out into the world on their own." The Thunder Bay district continues to have the highest opioid-related death rate in Ontario, at nearly five times the provincial average. NorWest Community Health Centres, which operated Path 525, is the lead partner for Thunder Bay's HART Hub. Unlike supervised consumption sites, HART Hubs do not allow supervised drug consumption, safer supply or needle exchange programs. According to the province, they instead focus on providing primary care, employment support, and mental health, addiction and social services — much of which PACE already offers. "I'm so excited," McKinnon said of the upcoming move. "PACE is expanding in so many ways, it's amazing." 'They help me with all of it' Everyone who works at PACE has lived experience of the challenges their clients are going through, such as homelessness, addictions and mental health issues. David Baumgartner is a long-time client at PACE who started coming there when he was staying at an overnight shelter. "It kind of became like my second home. I'm here often, pretty much every day, for everything from just talking to people to eating to getting clothes, whatever," he said. "They help me with all of it." He said it's important for the city to support places like PACE, which are open to everyone. "Even though I have an apartment, I still come here to eat. I come here to get out of the house; it gets depressing sitting in there all the time," Baumgartner said. "It kind of became like my second home." - David Baumgartner, client at PACE "It's really important to have a space like this, where people can feel safe." McKinnon said PACE is planning a seamless transition to its new space to avoid any disruption in services. A moving company is expected to start bringing things over from the Victoria Avenue East location in mid-July. Renovations have already started at the George Street building, she said. Her hope is that as PACE expands its presence in the region, more people gain a better understanding of the clients it serves. "Once you get to know the people that come to PACE, you get a whole different idea of them. They're wonderful people that really want to give back to the community," McKinnon said. As temperatures begin to rise, she said PACE is most in need of donations of seasonal clothing — especially for men — as well as shoes, kitchen and household items and fans.
Globe and Mail
24-05-2025
- Globe and Mail
The heroic life and tragic death of Trey Helten
I saw Trey Helten for the last time in September last year. It was a typical day on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. A steady drizzle fell. People huddled in doorways, slept on the wet sidewalk or stood slumping like broken dolls as their drugs took hold. Trey had been there himself. He spent years homeless and addicted on those streets, then more years working in a supervised drug-use site trying to help people survive the opioids crisis. Now he was getting out. He had left his job, exhausted, beat-up and hoping to make a new start. He showed up for our meeting with his ever-present black dog, Zelda. He tied her leash to a railing and we went into a diner for lunch and a talk. His story was a familiar one. Trey got into trouble when he was a kid and started smoking crack cocaine when he was 14 years old. He quit school. He moved to the Downtown Eastside, one of Canada's roughest, poorest neighbourhoods. He graduated to heroin. He ended up sleeping on the sidewalk, a ruin of a man, his handsome face pale and scarred. Then one day he walked into a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, pushing a shopping cart full of his stuff. With the help of NA and addiction medicine, he got sober. He started volunteering at the drug-use site. He was a natural, with a commanding presence and a knack for treating clients as equals. Before long he was running the place. Trey became a famous figure in the Downtown Eastside, instantly recognizable with his studded leather vest and his towering, brightly dyed Mohawk. He seemed to be everywhere. Striding down East Hastings Street with Zelda at his side. Speaking in documentaries and news stories about the devastation wrought by the overdose epidemic. Buying bacon and eggs for a struggling friend in a booth at the Ovaltine Café. He knew everyone and everyone knew him: cops, social workers, first responders, dealers, users. Like a soldier in a long war, he saw many of his comrades perish over the years. But he saved many, too, jumping in to revive them with a shot of naloxone or a dose of oxygen. He was at it days, nights and weekends. Driving people to drug detox. Visiting fallen friends in hospital. Offering someone a place to crash while they sorted things out. Where others saw ghoulish subhumans staggering along the street, he saw people. He knew their names and stories. And yet a shadow hung over Trey whenever I went to see him. He had a haunted look. It was there in his eyes. He couldn't shake the feeling, so common among those in his world, that he was somehow contemptible, worthless, a failure. For others, he had all the compassion in the world; for himself, none. In the first line of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, David Copperfield asks 'whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life.' If you had put that question to Trey, he would have laughed or shrugged. He could never see himself that way, no matter how much good he had done and how much pain he had endured. He was coming out of a tough stretch when I saw him over lunch last fall. He had started using drugs again. He had an angry meltdown at work. He got into a fight with his teenage son. He passed out on the street one night and landed in hospital with pneumonia. Something had to change. After days of agonizing withdrawal, he managed to quit the drugs again. When we spoke, he had just taken a new job: retrieving dead bodies for the B.C. Coroners Service. A strange choice, he agreed. Not exactly a mood lifter. But he felt it was useful work. He would get a text from a dispatcher, hop in his van and go. He was good with the families. On days off he led meetings of Narcotics Anonymous. He was hoping to patch things up with his son. A few months after our lunch, his girlfriend became pregnant with his child. I didn't talk to Trey for a while. The fall passed, winter came and went. Then last month my phone lit up with a text from the West Coast. Trey had failed to report for work one day. Friends went over to his place. Trey had died at age 42. No one said how, but everyone had the same sinking thought. Throngs of people dropped into his day-long memorial service on East Hastings to say their goodbyes earlier this month. They were the usual motley crew, many bearing the marks and wounds of street life. They left flowers in front of his picture. They wept. They laughed. They sang karaoke. They bent to pet Zelda. They wondered how it was possible that Trey, the indestructible, was gone. Trey Helten may not have been the hero of his own life, but he was one to them. He was one to me.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Yahoo
Executive director of faith-based nonprofit charged with child porn possession
The executive director of a faith-based addiction recovery nonprofit in St. Paul has been charged with 12 counts of child sexual abuse material possession. Drew Brooks, 67, of Roseville, the executive director of Faith Partners, was investigated after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a "CyberTip report" from Microsoft on Christmas Day, 2022, saying an individual had accessed software to "disseminate child sexual abuse material on Christmas Eve." According to the criminal complaint, NCMEC received "several more" CyberTips concerning the same home between Oct. 5, 2023 and Apr. 28, 2024, which was the home where Brooks lives with his wife. A search warrant was obtained and then executed on Oct. 29, 2024, with Brooks and his wife detained at their home. Computers and flash drivers were seized, with officers allegedly finding documents in the name of Faith Partners in his home office, along with a black laptop bag. Inside the laptop bag was an envelope allegedly addressed to Brooks, which contained printed images of child sexual abuse, the complaint says. Brooks' wife told police she knew her husband looked at pornography, but wasn't aware he was looking at child pornography. She also said there were flash drives and computers in the home that Brooks used for work. When interviewed, police placed the folder that contained child porn on the table, with Brooks allegedly acknowledging that he recognized the folder and was aware of its contents, but claims he forgot the folder even existed. Per the complaint, he then proceeded to claim he had been sexually abused by his grandfather when he was 7-9 years old, began abusing substances when he was 11-13, was in recovery at the age of 22, and went to sex addicts anonymous when he was 24, and "unearthed" these recollections in therapy about six years earlier. "Brooks said he was not initially interested in child sexual abuse material, but he found it was only a click away," the complaint says. "Brooks admitted he had looked at child sexual abuse material that week. Brooks said there would be child sexual abuse material on a laptop downstairs in his home." He continued to say that he is "not necessarily' sexually attracted to children" but is "attracted to the novelty," describing an "attraction/repulsion dynamic along with novelty makes him seek the material out." Brooks has worked for Faith Partners since 1999 as a project manager, and has been its executive director since 2011. He has played a major role in prevention, treatment, public health, and faith-based work for more than three decades.
BBC News
22-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
The Staffordshire men boxing to 'release the hurt inside'
A man who was previously addicted to drugs and alcohol says boxing replaced his vices and helped him turn his life European champion boxer Ewan Welsh made a bet in the pub with his friend that he was going to get into the epileptic seizure while in the ring meant the end of his time as an athlete, but coaching others gave him another avenue to went on to set up the "Brothers In Arms" group at Korefitness in Silverdale, Staffordshire, where men can learn to box and open up about their issues. Participant Ethan Mourn said the retired boxer's group was a place where he felt able to talk."I was in a kind of dark place, confused and bit emotional, but then I came here, spoke to Ewan and he's helped me quite a lot," he said. Another participant, Josh Shepard, said he lost his job after his dad and cousin died within the space of six felt boxing with the group helped him, and that he also benefitted from chatting to others."The gym just didn't do it for me," he said. "Just punching a bag really does just release a lot inside hurt."He said he was hooked after his first session, and the brew and biscuits at the end were an important reason for attending."There's nowhere I'd rather be," he added. Ben Betts, a mental health coach at the group, explained working out helped release endorphins, which in turn enabled the men to feel more able to open up."Even if you're having a really bad week, you can come here and hit the bag, release your evil energies," he said. Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
