Weekly Bulletin 07/10/2024

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Welcome to our next Weekly Bulletin. Please accept our apologises for the delay in releasing a new weekly news, this is due to annual leave last week. Normal service will be resumed on the 10th. If you would like us to include something on our weekly news, please get in touch by emailing [email protected].

SMART Recovery UK and Ireland Volunteer Recognition Awards – Announcing the Winners

Firstly, a big thank you from SMART Recovery UK and Ireland to all our volunteers. We truly appreciate the hard work, passion, and dedication that you as SMART Facilitators exhibit in your communities. We are extremely proud of the work that you do – thank you!

On Monday, 30rd September 2024, UK SMART Recovery held its first every SMART Recovery UK and Ireland Volunteer Recognition Awards, sponsored by Start360. It was a wonderful night of showcasing UK SMART Recovery’s programmes in the community and celebrating our SMART Recovery Facilitators in the UK, Ireland, and the Isle of Man.

UK SMART Recovery debuted its 7-minute documentary about the SMART Family & Friends Programme. Their stories were powerful, inspirational, and heart-warming. We are truly grateful for the interviewees for sharing their personal stories and the benefits they experienced by attending these meeting in order to help others in a similar situation. Thank you to Simon Jackson for the initial idea of creating a documentary to highlight the benefits of the UK SMART Family & Friends Meetings, and Malcom Moore and Tom Kent for its production. Malcolm and Tom spent time getting to know our meeting participants and creating a safe space for them to share their intimate stories about dealing with a loved one’s addiction and addictive behaviour. In case you missed it, UK SMART Recovery will provide you details on how to the view the documentary in the next couple of weeks.

During the evening, we heard brief presentations from our CEO, Dr Charlie Orton, and Community Coordinators on some exciting initiatives that UK SMART Recovery has been working on over the past year – InsideOut, SMART Veterans Programme, Opioid Over Prescription Service , and the Start SMART Programme. Our Ambassador, Brandon Block, and SMART Recovery Facilitator, Steve Saunders, spoke about their experiences as SMART Facilitators and the benefits of volunteering.

But, as you can image, the highlight of the evening were our award winners:

Significant Achievement of the Year – Angela Reid for her work in delivering SMART Family & Friends Meetings and Women’s Only SMART Recovery Meetings in North Wales.

Campaigner of the Year – Ben Delija for his fundraising for the Unite for Recovery campaign. He championed the campaign every single day for over a month and his social media posts were inspiring.

Leadership Volunteer of the Year – Ian Preece for his exceptional oversight and leadership as Treasurer.

Ambassador Award – Hydebank Wood YOI, Start 360 for collaborating with UK SMART Recovery in the developing of the Start SMART Programme. We would like to thank Tanya Mitchell and Grainne Griffith for their leadership and support in working with the young people – Jordan, Matthew, Adam, and Sean Paul. This winner was chosen by our Ambassador, Brandon Block.

Volunteer of the Year – Dr. Manrutt Wongkaew or better known as Manny for modelling best practice in facilitation, acting as a recovery role model, and having an outstanding ability and capacity to help and support others. He is exceptionally talented kind-hearted and dedicated.

As you can imagine, the Volunteer of the Year category had the greatest number of nominations, and it was extremely difficult for us to narrow down the choices to one person. So, we decided to create another sub-award in this category, Highly Commended Award, who we would like to acknowledge:

Robbie Lyttle

Steve Saunders

Charlie Sampson

Richard Quinn

Mick Hirst

Dan Murphy

Louise McColgan

Matt Flegg

Joe Doherty

Michelle Honey

If you were able to attend the SMART Recovery UK and Ireland Volunteer Recognition Awards on Monday evening, please take a moment to fill out the online survey .

Thank you again for your support and hard work in promoting the benefits of SMART Recovery in the community. We really appreciate all that you do!

Research Focus Group Volunteers Wanted – SMART Family & Friends

Edge Hill University is conducting a research project about SMART Family & Friends Programme. They are looking for SMART Family & Friends participants to talk about their sense of identity, how they became aware of SMART Family and Friends, the ways it has supported them, and how it could be improved. For more information or to offer to sign up, please contact Professor Rebecca Monk via [email protected].

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Volunteers wanted for online focus group discussions exploring the lived experiences of individuals attending SMART Family and Friends

Professor Rebecca Monk from Edge Hill University would like to speak to individuals who attend SMART Family and Friends to help shape the research questions of a project that is being planned by addiction researchers at Kings College London, University of Birmingham, and Edge Hill University. Our project will focus on how SMART Family and Friends attendees’ sense of self, their identity and behaviours have been shaped by the addiction issues they have indirectly experienced and by attending SMART Family and Friends.

We are looking for UK volunteers who have attended at least one SMART Family and Friends meeting previously to contribute to focus group discussions. This will involve talking about your sense of identity, how you became aware of SMART Family and Friends, the ways it has supported you, and how it could be improved. You will also be asked to share some brief written thoughts (anonymously) in response to prompts.

Participants will be required to attend two 1 ½ hour online focus groups of 8-10 people via Microsoft Teams and your insights will be used to help us develop a grant application in this area.

The first meeting will take place on 11^th October 2-3:30pm and the second meeting will take place 1^st November 2-3:30pm. Please only express an interest in participating if you can attend both sessions. If a lot of individuals sign up, please also understand that we may need to choose participants via a raffle. The deadline for expressions of interest is 7^th October 12 Noon.

Participants will be reimbursed £75 for attending both focus group discussions. Payments will be handled by bank transfer. If you are selected to take part, we will contact you to request some details to facilitate this.

For more information or to offer to sign up, please contact Professor Rebecca Monk via [email protected].

North East and Yorkshire Activities

It was an extremely busy final week of Recovery Month for our North East & Yorkshire Community Coordinator, Jeni Langley.

First stop was a trip to HMP Hatfield in Doncaster for a recovery event for prisoners, where she had our Community Coordinator for the North West and East Midlands, Danny Howell for company. 😊 Next stop was catching up and a face-to-face SMART Facilitator drop-in with the wonderful team at Sober Social, Project 6 in Doncaster. The 3^rd event was the launch of a new women’s network in Sheffield called SWIPE and the premiere of the film submitted to the Recovery Street Film Festival at the fabulous Project 6 Sheffield recovery café.

The 4^th day was another face-to-face SMART Facilitator drop-in with both new and experienced SMART Facilitators at Likewise in Sheffield.

The final day was a big one! The morning was a screening of all 15 of the finalist films in the Recovery Street Film Festival at The Showroom Cinema in Sheffield featuring 3 films amongst the finalists from our partners at Project 6-Doncaster, Project 6 (The Arc)- Sheffield and SWIPE. It was a wonderful occasion and she was really thrilled to be there when SWIPE were announced as the overall winner! 😀

Lastly, there was an End of Recovery Month celebration held at Sheffield Town Hall. What an absolutely brilliant week and Jeni would like to say a massive thank you to everyone for looking after her so well.