David Clark

3rd March 2024

What Helps Families Create Sustained Change?: Rhoda Emlyn-Jones OBE

'One of the big things that makes such a big difference is having an approach that is inclusive. That includes the person, the network, the family.' Rhoda points out that our personal wellbeing is tied up with our sense of belonging, with who is around us, and being loved...
26th February 2024

Huseyin Djemil’s Reflections

... as I've moved along this recovery journey, I've realised that it is about trauma, when I look back at my life. It's also about not just trauma causing addiction, but trauma causing a dislocation of me from myself. The drugs and all the other stuff that came after that is a searching to reconnect to myself somehow.
23rd February 2024

Building a Recovery Community

NWRC attracted good supporters of the organisation, including high quality Trustees. As the complexity of the organisation increased, the Trustees came to include people with expertise in matters like law and finance. NWRC has now been separated into three different legal community interest companies—the residential...
22nd February 2024

A Wall To Recovery: Stigma

David McCartney describes the negative reactions of a doctor who was assessing him as part of the process of determining whether he was eligible to receive benefits after he had come out of a treatment rehab. Huseyin relates how difficult it was talking about his past when he worked in the civil service, and then asks whether...
21st February 2024

The Four Walls: Mark Ragins

If we ask people what was most helpful to them they rarely describe our clever diagnosis and elaborate combinations of medications. They describe moments of human kindness and caring, of believing in them and inspiring hope, of listening to them and making them feel precious. Recovery is not a process in which illness is...
19th February 2024

It Goes Back To My Childhood: Rhoda Emlyn-Jones

Alun provided so much support for people with alcohol-related issues. There are still three rehabs existing in Wales because of him. He did all this voluntarily. He used to bring home people who had nowhere to live and were drinking on the streets. Rhoda and her sisters used to...
19th February 2024

Integrated Family Support Services (IFSS): Rhoda Emlyn-Jones

The idea was that Community Psychiatric Nurses (CPNs), drug and alcohol specialists, social workers, occupational therapists and health visitors would form one team. The team would look at new referrals and only one person would visit the family, since they were all doing the...
19th February 2024

Option 2: Rhoda Emlyn-Jones

They developed their approach, looking at Home Builders—a home- and community-based, intensive family preservation services treatment programme in America—and various psychological therapies that worked. The service name Option 2 was decided upon, since it said to colleagues ‘at the point that you are about to remove...
19th February 2024

It Goes Back To My Childhood: Rhoda Emlyn-Jones OBE

Alun provided so much support for people with alcohol-related issues. There are still three rehabs existing in Wales because of him. He did all this voluntarily. He used to bring home people who had nowhere to live and were drinking on the streets. Rhoda and her sisters used to... 
16th February 2024

My Name is Jim and I’m a Recovery Ally: Jim LaPierre

I love working with people in recovery because I like people who are exceptionally genuine, motivated, and who seek to make great changes in their lives.... People in recovery inspire me. I love their candor, their accountability, their integrity, their humor, and...
15th February 2024

Ruby’s Healing Story: Marion Kickett

Marion tells how Ruby was taken from her mother and trained as a domestic. She was raped on the station to which she was sent, and gave birth to a child who was removed. This did not happen just once… Ruby married and had three children. Alcohol numbed the pain of losing her first children and Ruby developed a drinking problem. She was imprisoned for manslaughter, but eventually overcame her problems. She needed to forgive before she could begin healing.
13th February 2024

Creating Theme Clips, Playlists & Theme Films

I really enjoy editing the Theme film clips that are created for each of our interviewees. These film clips are generally less than three minutes long and focus on a primary theme from our interviews/conversations. I edit these clips after I have broken the original conversation up...
9th February 2024

A Special Message From BAC O’Connor

'I am pleased to announce that Kendra Gray, our dedicated Strategic Director and Deputy CEO for over 12 years, has stepped into the role of CEO at BAC O’Connor... Noreen was the reason that BAC exists today and she will continue to be a presence in all that we do here...' Tony Oliver, Director, BAC O'Connor Centre
8th February 2024

Recovery Voices Teaser: Rhoda Emlyn-Jones OBE

Rhoda Emlyn-Jones from Cardiff has developed a wide range of services over the past 40 years that deliver proven effective interventions to thousands of individuals and families. Her Option 2 service works intensively with families which experience substance use difficulties...
7th February 2024

Theme: Recovery Advocacy, Part 1

Huseyin describes Towards Recovery wanting to  show that people in recovery are assets. They feed the soil of where they live. They’re the people who’ve walked through deep water and come out the other side. David McCartney started to write about recovery because he wanted more people to understand and know what was...