Welcome to our next Weekly Bulletin. If you would like us to include something on our weekly news, please get in touch by emailing [email protected].
Health & Wellbeing Special Draw
5 days, 10 charities, £5,000 each – nominations open Monday 22nd April.
To support the incredible work that so many charities do to support health and wellbeing, The Benefact Group have annouced their second special draw of the year where they will award £5,000 to 10 charities who work in this sector. To nominate SMART Recovery, please find more information here.
First Veterans Partner
UK SMART Recovery is delighted to announce its new partnership with Op COURAGE NHS Berkshire to offer service users the SMART Veterans Recovery Programme!
Earlier this year UKSR launched its new SMART Veterans Programme which has been created with the veteran community that we support. An additional training module helps facilitators to understand why and how people enter into the military, the effects of combat trauma and the resulting mental health conditions, specific issues that veterans face and how best to support them. In addition, a SMART Veterans User Guide (a new type of participant handbook) has been created in collaboration with Anxious Minds, a charity with extensive experience in supporting veterans in the NE. Any organisation or service that supports veterans with behavioural problems, substance dependency and misuse can now commission the programme. Any professional/staff working in these organisations can train to be a veteran facilitator. Peer volunteers must be a veteran who have overcome addiction themselves and want to give back via mutual aid. The programme can be delivered within criminal justice settings as well as within services, veteran residences, or community venues.
UKSR is also keen to grow its veteran family and friends programme and are always looking for volunteer facilitators to help us do this. It will lead to a tailored programme with its own training module and handbook publication. It is through this programme that UKSR will strive to reach as many veterans needing help as possible. Our CEO Dr Charlie Orton extends her best wishes…….Congratulations to Archie and the team at Ops COURAGE NHS Berkshire for commissioning a SMART Veterans Licence. We are delighted to have you on board with us and know you will make a great success of it. It is partners like you who help us to achieve our mission of reaching as many who need us as possible
North East Activities
“Our North East and Yorkshire Community Coordinator, Jeni Langley, has been on her travels again! On Tuesday, she was in York and met with our SMART Facilitator from York Alcohol Forum, Claire Cook. She then hotfooted it over to see the fabulous work being done by Ruth Hasney and the team at Garrison Community Hub in Catterick on Tuesday evening. Jeni had the opportunity to experience her first Mil-SMART hybrid meeting, along with our Veteran Programme Lead, Janine Crowdy. Lastly, she was invited to the ‘Restart’ event, organised by Gavin Airedale of Indeed in Partnership, York. This provided the opportunity to spread the word about all our SMART Recovery programmes to their clients.”
Get Together Event
Our SMART Facilitator Steve Saunders spoke at the Changing Future’s Bridge the Gap Outreach Worker Get Together event hosted by Oakleaf in Guildford, Surrey on Wednesday, 10th April 2024. Steve shared his experience in setting up and running SMART Recovery Meetings in the Guildford area and asked other mental health organisations attending the event to signpost their clients to SMART Recovery for support. Thank you, Steve, for championing SMART Recovery in your community!
New Meetings
New Weekly Veterans SMART Meeting, Pembroke Dock