‘Recovery In Focus is about connection and using photographs to tell stories. Our unique therapeutic photography project works with people in early recovery from addiction to drink and drugs. Looking through the lens of a camera gives a new and creative way to tell stories of addiction and recovery.’ Eternal Media, Wrexham, Wales
Late last year, I interviewed Jill Whittingham, Lead Therapist at Eternal Media, and Lucke Gabriel about the exciting therapeutic photography initiative Jill has developed at Eternal Media. It was obvious to me that this exciting initiative is an important way to facilitate recovery from addiction and related problems. I’ve divided up a chapter I wrote into three parts, which appear across the next three days. Here is the first part:
…..
Jill Whittingham, who lives in Nantwich in England, is twenty-one years in recovery from alcoholism. She qualified as a counsellor in 2006 and immediately started working at Open Minds, a small rehab clinic in Wrexham. There, she met Marcus Fair, Founder of Eternal Media, during the time he spent at the rehab in 2016. He attended Jill’s group sessions.
Although he was always very respectful and polite, Jill thought that Marcus totally dismissed her and anything that she had to offer. In a group setting, Marcus was a lone wolf, a person with an air of superiority at times. Jill recognised that Marcus possessed a traumatic and dramatic background, and had been through many treatment centres and other support systems.
In his later time at Open Minds, Marcus had a real battle with the director of the rehab who always encouraged people to take things slowly and easily when they left the rehab in order to protect their recovery. However, Marcus was all about getting straight into filming and setting up Eternal Media. He was ‘full on’ when discussing his future plans. Alarm bells were ringing for the professional team, as they were concerned that Marcus was just transferring a lot of addictive behaviours into his future work life.
1. A Special Invite
Marcus remained on Jill’s radar after he left the rehab, as both worked in Wrexham and she was regularly in touch with the local recovery community. In 2018, Marcus contacted her out of the blue and asked if they could meet as he had something to ask her. When they got together, he immediately told Jill about the positive impact she had had on him and emphasised that her groups were the only ones that were interesting and had stimulated him. Jill had no idea that this had been the case. Marcus then asked her if she would become a trustee at Eternal Media. Jill was shocked to be asked, but excitedly agreed.
Two years earlier, Jill had started to explore the concept of therapeutic photography She had attended a course organised by PhotoVoice, a non-profit organisation which promotes the ethical use of photography for positive social change, and decided that she wanted to use photography as a therapeutic tool for helping people in early recovery. Although Jill wanted to use photography to tell stories, she had no idea of how to get such a project off the ground and have people to sign up for such a course. She described her idea to Marcus and asked whether it might be something they could do together. Marcus loved the idea and suggested that she run her project under Eternal Media’s umbrella.
2. Getting Funded
Jill and Marcus submitted a funding bid to the National Lottery in 2019 and received a £10,000 grant to start a ten-week Recovery in Focus course for people in early recovery from addiction to drink or drugs. Beginning in January 2020, Recovery in Focus sessions took place every Wednesday, alternating between days out in different locations (where photographs were taken) and sessions held in the classroom. However, due to the first national Covid lockdown in March, the course had to stop after six weeks. For a period, Jill then ran a daily online therapeutic photography course to link people up during the lockdown. Once the lockdown ended, the Eternal Media Trustees agreed to re-finance the first Recovery in Focus, starting it from the beginning. Some of the original participants were joined by new people in early recovery. A second National Lottery-funded Recovery in Focus took place in 2022.
When Jill and Marcus initially worked out the project costings, they had little idea of how much work would be involved in developing and running all aspects of the project. They seriously underestimated how much the project would cost. In 2023, they decided to submit a larger bid to the National Lottery, one which would involve five Recovery in Focus 10-week courses over a two-year period. The Lottery funding officer who was advising them emphasised the need to be much more realistic about their actual project costs. They therefore requested £20,000 for each individual project; even this amount did not cover the full costs of all the work.
Jill was alone on a holiday-of-a-lifetime in India when she received an email from the National Lottery funding officer. The funding committee had asked why only nine of the ten people who had started the course had finished. What were Eternal Media planning to do to improve their retention rate? Jill was taken aback at this comment. She checked on a government website about local authority-funded treatment and saw a completion rate of 65%—and this was possibly over-inflated. She wrote back and pointed these facts out, describing their 90% completion figure as ‘absolutely amazing’ for this field. Jill and Marcus were surprised and very excited when they later heard that their National Lottery funding bid was successful.
3. Recovery In Focus: What Is It?
Recovery in Focus is a 10-week therapeutic project for people in early recovery from addiction to drink and drugs. Participants are new to photography and all images are taken using mobile phone cameras (to make the project accessible). Looking through the lens of a camera gives a new and creative way to tell stories of addiction and recovery. People are supported in their recovery journey in various ways, with creativity playing an important role combined with a strong base of therapeutic support by Jill. The project provides a structure and routine and requires commitment. Participants are told that they are expected to commit to the full ten weeks. The need to be respectful to others is emphasised and the project also helps make recovery visible.
The workshops are facilitated by Jill and Lucke Gabriel, who is Head of Post Production and a Producer at Eternal Media. Marcus Fair joins these sessions when his schedule allows.
At one level, Recovery in Focus teaches skills. Jill and Lucke run a skills session each week, so that participants learn to take better photographs with their mobile phone when they go out on location. The therapeutic part of the project involves participants telling a story relating to a particular photograph they have taken. What do you see in your photograph? How does it make you feel? How do you feel when you share this photograph? A key aim aim of the project is to build participants’ confidence and self-esteem, which occurs as they learn and implement new skills, and find out that they are good at something when they receive positive feedback from other people.
Participants have to submit two photographs from each location shoot. The photographs are shown on a massive screen in the following workshop session in The Bunker. It’s quite something to suddenly see your photograph in this way, rather than just on your phone. Jill encourages the development of a warm, supportive and encouraging environment, one that helps confidence and self-esteem to grow. She jokes about the difference between critique and criticism. Participants must be careful in what they say. They must also be aware that people see the same image in different ways.
Each week, Jill runs exercises with different themes, including self-esteem, making healthy choices, cross-addiction, building a robust recovery toolkit, making changes, reflections—drawing on her experience of workshops that she ran in the rehab. She lays out about 500 photographs, most of which are her own, and asks participants to pick out some that relate in their mind to the topic being discussed.
In another exercise, Jill asks participants to select just one of those photographs and talk about it. They start by talking about the photograph, but very quickly move on to saying why they chose it and how it relates to themselves. The photograph is a conduit for sharing—it can make the situation ‘safe’ for them, one in which they are more in control of the dialogue, even when Jill asks them questions. Within a few sessions, Jill learns about the person and their family, what they like and dislike, and some of the difficult parts of their life. Jill feels this approach is more comfortable than when she simply stands in front of a group and asks someone to tell her about themselves.
Jill runs Jill Whittingham Counselling Services.